Trump Says ‘I Absolutely Love' That Stephen Colbert Got ‘Fired' and ‘I Hear Jimmy Kimmel Is Next'
CBS said Thursday that it plans to end 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' in May 2026, calling it a 'purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.'
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CBS Canceling Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' Is an End of an Era for Television - and a Chilling Sign of What's to Come
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Jimmy Kimmel Says 'F- You CBS' for Canceling 'Late Show With Stephen Colbert' as Speculation Stirs if the Series Is Ending for 'Political Reasons'
'I absolutely love that Colbert' got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday morning. 'I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!'
The president then went on to praise Fox News late-night comedian Greg Gutfeld, whom Trump said 'is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,' referring to Jimmy Fallon.
CBS's move to pull Colbert off the air came two weeks after Paramount Global announced that it agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit alleging a '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited. And the announcement of 'The Late Show' cancelation came three days after Colbert had said on his show that the settlement by CBS's parent company was 'a big, fat bribe,' alleging that Paramount made the payment because it's seeking to secure the Trump administration's approval to merge with Skydance Media.
'As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended, and I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,' Colbert joked in his July 14 opening monologue. 'But just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help.' Colbert added, 'Paramount knows they could have easily fought it because in their own words, the lawsuit was 'completely without merit.' And keep in mind, Paramount produced 'Transformers: Rise of the Beast.' They know 'completely without merit.''
Critics of Trump including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) suggested that CBS's cancelation of Colbert's show may have been related to the Paramount settlement with the president. 'America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,' Warren wrote on social media Thursday evening.
Kimmel on Thursday wrote in an Instagram story, 'Love you Stephen' — and lashed out at CBS: 'Fuck you and all your Sheldons CBS.'
Kimmel, host of ABC's 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!', has been attacked by Trump in the past. In an interview last month with Variety, Kimmel was asked if he was worried that Trump would start coming after comedians in the way that he's tried to intimidate news media outlets and journalists. 'Well, you'd have to be naive not to worry a little bit. But that can't change what you're doing,' Kimmel said. 'And maybe it is naive, but I have the hope that if and when the day comes that he does start coming after comedians, that even my colleagues on the right will support my right to say what I like. Now, I could be kidding myself, and hopefully we'll never find out. But if we do, I would hope that the outrage is significant.'
At Thursday's taping of 'The Late Show,' Colbert broke the news to the audience that the show was ending. 'It is a fantastic job. I wish somebody else was getting it,' he said. Colbert also thanked CBS executives and the 200 or so staffers who work on the program. To the boos of the audience at the news, Colbert said, 'Yeah, I share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of 'The Late Show' on CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away.'
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