Stephen Colbert's ‘Late Show' canceled by CBS, ends May 2026
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Global News
4 days ago
- Global News
Donald Trump says he's not ‘solely responsible' for ‘Late Show' cancellation
U.S. President Donald Trump claims he had nothing to do with the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump said 'everybody' thinks he was 'solely responsible' for the end of the late-night talk show but he said the rumours are 'not true!' 'Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, 'Late Night,'' Trump wrote. 'That is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT, and the fact that this deficiency was costing CBS $50 Million Dollars a year in losses — And it was only going to get WORSE!' Trump went on to claim that 'an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel' will be 'next up' to lose his job, followed by 'a weak, and very insecure, Jimmy Fallon.' Story continues below advertisement 'The only real question is, who will go first? Show Biz and Television is a very simple business. If you get Ratings, you can say or do anything. If you don't, you always become a victim,' Trump wrote. 'Colbert became a victim to himself, the other two will follow.' A screenshot of Donald Trump's post on Truth Social. @RealDonaldTrump / Truth Social Kimmel responded to Trump's latest post by sharing a screenshot of it on Instagram and writing, 'I know you're busy Sharpie-ing the Epstein files, but this seems like a weird way to tell people to watch Matt Damon and Ken Jennings on an all-new Who Wants to Be a Millionaire tomorrow night at 8|7c on @ABC.' Story continues below advertisement Last week, Kimmel fired back at Trump after the president declared Kimmel the 'next to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes,' following the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy On July 22, Trump took to Truth Social to criticize Kimmel, claiming he has 'absolutely NO TALENT' and warning that his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, is next on the chopping block. 'The word is, and it's a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes, and shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone,' Trump wrote of Kimmel and his fellow late-night host, Fallon. 2:16 'Trump believes he has immunity': Colbert cancellation sparks censorship speculation 'These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It's really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!' Story continues below advertisement Kimmel responded by sharing a screenshot of Trump's post on Instagram with the caption: 'I'm hearing you're next. Or maybe it's just another wonderful secret' — a reference to a Wall Street Journal report, published July 17, that claimed Trump had written the phrase to Jeffrey Epstein in a letter for his 50th birthday in 2003. Fallon also responded to Trump's post last week during the July 21 episode of The Tonight Show. 'I am your host,' Fallon told his audience. 'Well, at least for tonight.' 'I don't like it. I don't like what's going on one bit. These are crazy times.' Story continues below advertisement Colbert hasn't responded to Trump's latest claim that he wasn't 'solely responsible' for the end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert but he did share some choice words for Trump during an opening monologue on the show last week. 1:18 Stephen Colbert claps back at Trump: 'Go f**k yourself' The late-night host read Trump's post celebrating the decision to cancel the show on Truth Social on July 18, in which he wrote, 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.' Colbert said into the 'Eloquence Cam': 'How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism? Go f— yourself.'
Toronto Sun
5 days ago
- Toronto Sun
Singer Ciara among first descendants of enslaved people granted Benin citizenship
European merchants deported an estimated 1.5 million enslaved people from the Bight of Benin to the Americas. Published Jul 29, 2025 • 3 minute read Singer Ciara attends the 2025 ESPY awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on July 16, 2025. Photo by VALERIE MACON / AFP via Getty Images Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. DAKAR, Senegal — U.S. singer Ciara is one of the first public figures to become a citizen of Benin under a recent law by the small West African country granting citizenship to descendants of enslaved people. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The Grammy-winning performer's acquisition of citizenship at a ceremony Saturday in the city of Cotonou is part of a broader initiative by Benin to attract the Black diaspora, acknowledge the country's role in the transatlantic slave trade, and promote tourism focused on slavery-related sites of remembrance. 'By legally recognizing these children of Africa, Benin is healing a historical wound. It is an act of justice, but also one of belonging and hope,' Justice Minister Yvon Detchenou said at the ceremony. Here's what to know about Benin's efforts to welcome descendants of enslaved people: Benin's Afro-descendant citizenship law In September, Benin passed a law granting citizenship to those who can trace their lineage to the slave trade. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It is open to anyone above 18 who doesn't already hold other African citizenship and can provide proof that an ancestor was deported via the slave trade from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Beninese authorities accept DNA tests, authenticated testimonies and family records. Last week, the government launched My Afro Origins, the digital platform that processes applications. While Benin is not the first country to grant citizenship to descendants of enslaved people, its citizenship law carries added significance, in part because of the role it played in the transatlantic slave trade. A national reckoning with its role in the slave trade European merchants deported an estimated 1.5 million enslaved people from the Bight of Benin — a region that includes present-day Benin, Togo and parts of Nigeria — to the Americas. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Beninese kings actively participated in capturing and selling enslaved people to Portuguese, French and British merchants. The former kingdoms and the communities they raided still exist today as tribal networks. Benin has long been working to reconcile with its legacy of complicity. It has openly acknowledged its role in the slave trade, a stance not shared by many other African nations that participated. In the 1990s, it hosted an international conference to examine how and where enslaved people were sold. In 1999, then-President Mathieu Kerekou apologized to African Americans during a visit to a church in Baltimore. 'Memorial tourism' Alongside this national reckoning, 'memorial tourism' around the legacy of the slave trade has become a key approach of Benin's government to attract Afro-descendants. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Memorial sites are mostly in Ouidah, one of Africa's most active slave-trading ports in the 18th and 19th centuries. They include the Slave Route, which was the path marking enslaved people's final journey to ships, and the Door of No Return, a haunting doorway that opens to the Atlantic Ocean where they left Africa, and their families, for the last time. Sinde Chekete, the head of Benin's state-run tourism agency, said these sites give Afro-descendants the opportunity to learn about and honor the struggles and resilience of their ancestors. 'It may inspire some people to say 'I want to return to Africa and choose Benin to understand this history',' Chekete said. Following her citizenship ceremony, Ciara toured the historic city, where she walked the Slave Route to the Door of No Return. 'Between emotion, reflection and heritage, I experienced a profound return to what truly matters,' she said. Ciara is best known for chart-topping hits like 'Goodies' and 'Level Up,' her dynamic choreography, and her work in fashion and philanthropy. MLB Canada Toronto & GTA Toronto Blue Jays World
Toronto Sun
27-07-2025
- Toronto Sun
Goldberg: Stephen Colbert's swan song is zeitgeist moment
Stephen Colbert and Donald Trump are seen in a combination file photo. Photo by Getty Images There's a lot of schadenfreude on the right, and even more lamentation on the left, about the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Donald Trump leads the schadenfreude caucus. 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,' Trump crowed on social media. 'I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!' (It is remarkable that a president who campaigned with a vow to end 'cancel culture' is so uninhibited in his celebration of cancel culture when it's on his terms.) The lamentations from the left are just as exuberant, from the other direction. They hail Colbert as a heroic martyr for free expression and speaking truth to power. 'Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repercussions,' MSNBC's Chris Hayes declared. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In a sense, both sides essentially agree that Colbert was cancelled because of his politics. The argument from the left is that this was unfair and even illegitimate. The illegitimate claim rests on the fact that CBS's parent company, Paramount, has been trying to curry favour with the administration to gain approval for the sale of the network to Skydance Media. Shari Redstone, Paramount's owner, approved a settlement of Trump's dubious lawsuit against 60 Minutes (which Colbert had criticized days earlier as a 'big fat bribe'). Colbert's scalp was a sweetener, critics claim. I think that theory is plausible, given the timing of the decision and the way it was announced. If this was the plan all along, why not announce the decision at the 2025 upfronts and sell ads in tandem with the wind-down? That's the way this sort of thing has been done in the past. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But Colbert's critics on the right have an equally plausible point. Colbert made the show very political and partisan, indulging his Trump 'resistance' shtick to the point where he basically cut the potential national audience in half. He leaned heavily on conventionally liberal politicians (tellingly, on the night he announced the news of his cancellation, his first guest was California Sen. Adam Schiff — a man who couldn't get a laugh if you hit him in the face with a pie). Recommended video But both the left-wing and right-wing interpretations have some holes. The theory that this was purely a political move overlooks the fact that CBS didn't merely fire Colbert, it's terminating the iconic Late Show entirely and giving the airtime back to local affiliates. If they solely wanted to curry favour with Trump, they could have given the show to more Trump-friendly (funnier and popular with the young'ns) comedians such as Shane Gillis or Andrew Schulz. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The show was reportedly losing some $40 million a year. Even if they hired someone for a quarter of Colbert's $15-million salary, it would still be losing money. On the right, many — Trump included — have pointed to the fact that Greg Gutfeld's not-quite-late-night Fox show has better ratings than his competitors on the three legacy networks. That's true, but it's hardly as if Gutfeld is any less partisan than Colbert, Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon. It's also true that the titans of previous eras — Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien — tended to avoid strident partisanship. But the nostalgia-fuelled idea that a more mainstream, apolitical host would garner similar audiences again gets the causality backward. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Those hosts were products of a different era, when huge numbers of Americans from across the political spectrum consumed the same cultural products. The hosts, much like news networks and newspapers, had a powerful business incentive to play it down the middle and avoid alienating large swaths of their audiences and advertisers. That era is over, forever. Now media platforms look to garner small 'sticky' audiences they can monetize by giving them exactly what they want. There's an audience for Colbert, and for Gutfeld, but what makes the roughly 2 million to 3 million nightly viewers who love that stuff tune in makes the other 330 million potential viewers tune in to something else. The Late Show model — and budget — simply doesn't work with those numbers. Cable news, led by Fox, ushered in political polarization in news consumption, but cable itself fuelled the balkanization of popular culture. Streaming and podcast platforms, led by YouTube, are turbocharging that trend to the point where media consumption is now a la carte (artificial intelligence may soon make it nigh upon bespoke). The late-night model was built around a culture in which there was little else to watch. That culture is never coming back. — Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch. Sports Columnists Sunshine Girls Toronto & GTA Toronto & GTA
