The decision to end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert may be cloaked in corporate-speak and presented as a financial necessity, but many Americans remain unconvinced.
Social media users have gone online in droves to claim the official narrative – that CBS is retiring the iconic franchise purely due to budgetary pressures – doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
According to them, the timing, the context, and the responses surrounding the show’s end all point to a deeper motive, and one that runs straight through the corridors of power in Washington.
On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert stood before his audience and delivered the kind of news no late-night host ever wants to share: next season will be his last.
‘It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS,’ he told a stunned studio crowd.
‘I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.’ His tone was somber, but many viewers felt there was clear tension under the surface.
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Just days before the announcement, Colbert criticized CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for reaching a $16million legal settlement with President Donald Trump.
The suit concerned the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election, an interview Trump claimed was manipulated. Not long after Colbert publicly blasted the settlement, CBS dropped the axe.
Officially, the network claims the show’s cancellation has nothing to do with Trump, politics, or the content of The Late Show but that denial came across less as a confident clarification and more as damage control.
Importantly, the show has had consistently high ratings in its slot and is often the highest-rated show in late-night.
Their statement read: ‘We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘THE LATE SHOW’ franchise at that time. This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.’
As Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall noted: ‘Pointedly, there is no comment from Colbert in the release, and there’s no way he wasn’t asked to provide a polite quote.’
Then came Trump’s gleeful gloating on Truth Social: ‘I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!
‘[Fox News host] Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.’
It was a smug victory lap that, intentionally or not, framed the network’s decision as a political scalp. It’s a bizarre spectacle when a sitting president takes public joy in the silencing of one of his loudest critics, but some also found it telling.
The Writers Guild of America issued a statement calling on New York state officials to launch an investigation into Paramount over ‘potential wrongdoing.’
The statement reads in part: ‘Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancelation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.’
US Senator Bernie Sanders shared a similar sentiment: ‘CBS’s billionaire owners pay Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit while trying to sell the network to Skydance. Stephen Colbert, an extraordinary talent and the most popular late night host, slams the deal. Days later, he’s fired. Do I think this is a coincidence? NO.’
Senator Adam Schiff agreed: ‘Just finished taping with Stephen Colbert who announced his show was cancelled. If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.’
Hollywood isn’t buying the official line either. Colbert’s peers have rallied around him, none more bluntly than Jimmy Kimmel, who posted: ‘Love you Stephen. F**k you and all your Sheldons CBS.’
Fans are also furious, flocking to social media in droves to share their outrage. @mmpadellan wrote: ‘Good morning and Happy Friday to everyone who agrees that it was a bulls*** move for CBS to cancel Stephen Colbert’s show just days after he called out their parent company Paramount for bending the knee to Trump.
I stand with Stephen Colbert.🙏💪’
@aintscarylarry wrote: ‘In case you missed it, the republicans cut off funding for NPR and PBS today. And later, CBS cancelled the Stephen Colbert show because he spoke the truth about Trump. Make no mistake about it: Fascism is here, and we are goose stepping toward having one state-approved media.’
Since Colbert took over in 2015, The Late Show has become a nightly thorn in the side of authoritarianism, misinformation, and Donald Trump himself.
Colbert’s monologues during the Trump presidency often went viral, his satire sharp enough to provoke presidential tweets and conservative backlash. He was, arguably, the last late-night host still consistently willing to hold power to account with biting honesty. And now he’s gone.
CBS may insist this is a simple case of budget cuts and shifting media trends, and it’s true the network, like many in legacy media, is navigating rocky financial waters.
But even if financial considerations were real, the optics of the timing and the conspicuous omission of any comment from Colbert in the announcement make it hard to believe the move was apolitical.
The merger between Paramount and Skydance Media – which still awaits approval from the FCC, an agency that reports to the President – adds another layer of intrigue. It’s not a stretch to see the show’s cancellation as a quiet concession, a quid pro quo to grease the wheels of a larger corporate deal.
A host with a clear political point of view, one unafraid to criticize both his own network and the sitting administration, is being taken off the air, while the President cheers from the sidelines and a multi-billion-dollar media merger waits for government approval.
The warning bells of creeping authoritarianism have been ringing in America for some time now, but this doesn’t just echo them; it sounds a blaring alarm.
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