The Media Research Center continued to be angry that people said nice things about Stephen Colbert as his late-night show wound down in a May 12 post by Curtis Houck:
Proving again how out of touch these New York liberals are from the rest of the country, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today were gaga for the far-left, late-night powwow that went down Monday on CBS’s The Late Show as ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, HBO’s John Oliver, and NBC’s Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers gathered to give Stephen Colbert some support ahead of his impending cancellation May 21.
Nevermind the fact that NewsBusters has been tracking late-night guests and jokes since late 2022 and found well over 90 percent of political guests are left-wing as well as political jokes targeting the right. In 2025, for example, our Alex Christy found 99 percent of all their political guests are left-wing and 92 percent of jokes attacked conservatives and Republicans.
It’s never been comedy. It’s late-night group therapy fomenting hate against at least half the country.
On CBS Mornings, featured co-host Vlad Duthiers had two teases swooning over this “team of rivals” coming together with “a lot to say” about Colbert’s departure.
Of course Houck would whine about there being not enough rtight-wing guests on Colbert’s show == that’s what he gets paid to do. He continued to whine:
Kimmel went morbid, joking he “feel[s] like” one does “when your young wife does” in that The Late Show going away is “sad” and “a tragedy.” After Fallon called it “odd” and “a bummer,” HBO’s Oliver made light of his ability to curse freely by calling Colbert’s cancellation B.S.
With the clip over, Duthiers — whose wife is the longtime showrunner for Oliver’s vile program — explained the supposed joke that “John can curse, it’s on cable.”
Without Tony Dokoupil to point out how much money these shows cost and how rabidly partisan they are, Duthiers briefly waxed poetic about how supposedly crucial Colbert has been:
[…]NBC’s Today had not one, but four teases gushing over the “sentimental sendoff” and “late-night gathering for the ages” in which the five shared some “laughs…one last night.”
Entertainment correspondent and former Colbert intern Chloe Melas gushed Monday’s Late Show “was such a great show…filled with countless jokes, endless laughs, and even a kiss.”
[…]Along with co-host Savannah Guthrie remarking their presence “just makes you feel good,”co-host Al Roker chimed in that “[w]e’re going to miss Mr. Colbert for sure.”
Houck didn’t allow pro- olbert voices to go unrebutted, while his hatred for Colbert is easy to see.
The next day, Alex Christy was in full comedy-cop mode:
Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus stopped by CBS and The Late Show on Tuesday to continue the line of guests who give gifts and odes to outgoing host Stephen Colbert. For her gift, Louis-Dreyfus reprised her Veep role to give a friendly roast of Colbert, where she claimed he is as relevant as the Bill of Rights and that she considers him to be the Stormy Daniels of late night.
Louis-Dreyfus began by setting up her surprise, “People have been coming on the show, and, recently to sing your praises and give you gifts. And you know how much I love you. I really do, and I wanted to sort of add to the chorus to sort of boost you along whatever brilliant thing you do next, and since I know you’re a huge fan of Veep—by the way, he does not know what I’m about to do. I got some of the Veep writers together to write a Veep style tribute to you, and will read them. I’m going to read them to you as Selina Meyer, my character in Veep.”
Initially, Louis-Dreyfus focused on Colbert’s face, Irish ancestry, and decision to Frenchify his name, “I’ve been on this show multiple times, and I always thought you were Rachel Maddow. Are you not? So, you’re Irish, but you decided to pronounce your name to sound French? That’s like putting lipstick on the pig, which I understand is what Irish people do before they [bleep] it.”
She then turned to Trump, “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re as relevant as the Bill of Rights. So, we have watched you age on camera from a spunky kid on The Daily Show to a canceled old late-night host whose jowls look like the scrotum of a well, canceled old late-night host. Your cancellation gave Donald Trump so much pleasure, I always think of you as the Stormy Daniels of late night.”
Even a roast of the host is not immune from hysterical freakouts about Trump. Given the ironic nature of the roast format, Louis-Dreyfus was telling Colbert not to worry about the fate of The Late Show because it is irrelevant, just like the Bill of Rights allegedly is in the Trump era.
[…]Perhaps it is only natural for guests to praise an outgoing host, but the constant need to politicize those farewells gives credence to the idea that for Colbert, The Late Show was first and foremost meant to be a show by liberals for liberals.
Given that it appears to everyone that Colbert was fired because of political reasons — specifically, that a thin-skinned President Trump hates him — it’s natural for that to come up. Why doesn’t Christy think so?
Christy then served up a May 15 tirade against the show’s previous host:
Former host of CBS’s The Late Show, David Letterman, stopped by to visit with current and outgoing host Stephen Colbert on Thursday to rant at the network about how “pissed off” he is at the situation and how personally he takes it. Later, the duo vented some more by going to the roof of the Ed Sullivan building and throwing the show’s furniture off the roof at a CBS logo.
Letterman’s self-righteous diatribe began when he quipped, “Well, you know what happened backstage. I’m standing backstage, a guy comes over, and he says he’s from CBS, and then he fired me.”
He also huffed, “What is going on there? I will say, and I have every right to be pissed off, so I will be pissed off here a little bit—because this theater, you folks wouldn’t be in this theater if it weren’t for me, and Stephen wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me, and we rebuilt this theater, and then Stephen came, and I look at this—it’s like the Bellagio, but listen, what is wrong here?”
After Colbert insisted that “Nothing’s wrong, Dave!” Letterman continued with the premise that The Late Show was canceled in order to shut Colbert up, “As we all understand, you can take a man’s show, but you can’t take a man’s voice, so that’s the good news. Thank you, cheers.”
[…]Before any furniture hurling was to begin, Colbert claimed they needed “Something circular, like a bullseye.” Already thinking ahead, Letterman then revealed the target was a CBS logo.
Colbert and Letterman’s furniture movers then tossed one of the guest chairs off the side of the building towards the target, but missed. Eventually a second guest chair hit the target that was covering a pile of children’s ball pit balls. That would be followed up with Colbert’s chair, some watermelons, and a Late Show-inspired wedding cake.
Tying it all together, Letterman thanked Colbert for “everything you’ve done for our country.”
An appreciative Colbert followed up, “The feeling is mutual, Dave, thank you. Anything you would like to say to the audience before we go?”
Letterman then got in one last shot at CBS, “Not necessarily to the audience but to the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, mother[bleep].”
Christuy didn’t disprove anything Letterman said.
Later that day, Nicholas Fondacaro huffed:
Alleged comedian Stephen Colbert once infamously claimed President Trump was Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s “cock holster.” CNN host Jake Tapper was acting in such a manner for Colbert during the Thursday edition of his show, The Lead . According to Tapper, who once claimed there was “ no reason to doubt ” information that came from Hamas, Trump used inferences and angry posts to get Colbert and his show canceled by CBS. While comparing Trump to a king who wanted his those who annoyed him assassinated, Tapper omitted just how much money Colbert was losing annually.
Tapper launched into one of his verbal editorials trying to suggest that Trump had orchestrated CBS’s firing of Colbert through social media posts and wishful thinking that the executives would get his message.
[…]Now, the longwinded Tapper did admit there was “no evidence that [Trump] demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled,” but he doubled down on the conspiracy theory with his admittedly flimsy historical analogy. “Nor, as King Henry demonstrates, does there need to be direct order,” he chided.
[…]“Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump,” Tapper argued. “And the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it.”
But Tapper never provided any evidence that CBS Paramount got what they wanted because Trump was pleased. Then again, facts weren’t really Tapper’s thing. It’s why a report on Tapper’s show was the reason CNN was successfully sued and found liable for malicious defamation last year.
But Fondacaro didn’t actually prove Tapper wrong. Instead, he continued to huff:
Buried within his ranting Tapper admitted “it is absolutely true that the economics of late night television have been challenging for quite some time due to a variety of factors including more streaming competition, declining advertising dollars, and on and on.” He even noted that, “Conan O’Brien’s late night show is no more. Ditto, the CBS comedy show that used to run after Colbert.”
But again, he omitted the facts. He ignored how Colbert’s show was hemorrhaging money. According to reports, it cost $100 million to produce the show annually and he was only bringing in $60 million. That’s a $40 million loss. No network would stand for that.
If they were actually trying to please Trump, they would have fired him immediately and would not have given him a months-long off-ramp where he could have turned his show’s finances around.
But Fondacaro’s alleged late-night numbers come from CBS, and the fact that Colbert was fired at the same time CBS’ parent paid Trump millions to settle a lawsuit cannot be overlooked, no matter how much Fondadcaro would like to.