July 21, 2025

Should Stephen Colbert run for President?

Show Notes
Transcript

This binus epsiode covers Rob Schneider's scathing Fox News op-ed calling Colbert's show "wafer thin Democratic propaganda."

John Oliver's reaction

Could this be the best thing that ever happened to Colbert's career? Should the Democrats recruit him for that open South Carolina Senate seat? And what does Jon Stewart—Colbert's friend, manager-mate, and executive producer—have to say about it all?

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WEBVTT

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Callarogas Shark Media.

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Hello again, I'm Johnny mag with a Stephen Colbert based

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bonus episode. There was a normal episode of Daily Comedy

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News in the feed earlier Monday. This is an episode

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for Monday Middle of the day. Let's start with Friend

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of the Show John Marco SIRESI he was on MSNBC.

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What do you make of his cancellation. I mean, give

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me your big takeaway pictures? Are you buying that it's financial?

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Is it sad to see the end of such a

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kind of iconic brand in franchise? It could be financial,

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and you know, Epstein could have liked Trump for his drawings.

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Anything's possible. Interesting reporting from Variety, who said, I guess

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last week. The phrasing is earlier this week, but it's

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Monday morning, so I guess. Last week, sky Dane's chief

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David Ellison met with FCC chair Brendan Carr and others

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at the commission to lobby for the deal's approval, and notably,

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Ellison promised that CBS's editorial decision making reflects the varied

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ideot logical perspectives of American viewers. In a February seventh

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Fox News interview, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr commented on Trump's

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lawsuit against CBS and said the president quote has been

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right on these media bias issues. On Tuesday, January fifteenth,

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Ellison and his lawyer met with Carr. According to a

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letter posted in the FCC's docket, Ellison and Brill Brill

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is Ellison's lawyer, emphasized the public interest benefits of the

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sky Dance Paramount transaction end quote. We also urged the

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Media Bureau to promptly grant approval of the transfer of

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the CBS licenses to quote new Paramount. According to the

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filing quote. We made clear that mister Ellison will lead

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New Paramount with a talented team of executives focused on

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American storytelling. A lot to unpack there. In Variety, Rob

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Schneider wrote an opinion piece for Fox News. Rob Schneider writes, respectfully,

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Stephen Colbert has been doing nothing but wayfer thinly disguised

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democratic propaganda talking points for the last eight years plus.

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While I completely support mister Colbert's freedom of speech, his

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utter disdain for half of America and every swing state

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greatly diminished his audience potential. I also respect Colbert's direct

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criticism of his employer, CBS Paramount, and his opinion that

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they cave to President Trump when they settled their lawsuit

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against the sitting president. That took guts. I'll give him that.

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But Colbert, like ABC Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel, excluded

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conservatives completely from his show and limited parentheses prevented his

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audience from hearing opposing viewpoints. Colbert fed liberal slopped to

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his liberal minded Kamala supporters, and cared less about challenging

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them intellectually by actually appealing to their higher nature or

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engaging in thought provoking debate. Nah, just keep crapping on

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half the country that's no longer afraid to say women

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don't have penises and boys shouldn't get to beat up

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girls in girls' sports. So, while I support mister Colbert's

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First Amendment right for free speech, great point, Rob Schneider. Yeah.

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As for CBS Paramount, they are a private company and

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they have to pay the bills or used to, so

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they can fire anyone they want in Colbert, who under

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an estimated twenty million dollars salary, was reportedly losing the

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company forty million dollars per year. Several more paragraphs there

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than Rob ends with. I wish mister Colbert are much

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success in whatever he does next. Show business is a

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tough business. Rob was on Fox and Friends.

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Colbert never had me on his show. Neither has Jimmy

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Kimmel or well, I guess I was on a couple

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of times early. But look, it's here's what happens. Like

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Colbert already cut the pie. It's a pizza. He already

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cut it in half. His potential audience. He cut it

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in half with it just by cutting out all conservatives

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at all, not caring about you know, the forty seven

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states that may have a different opinion than the Democratic

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Party of open borders, and women have junk between their legs.

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We have to And so he had half the pie

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already gone, and then then he has to divide that

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pizza in three slices with Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.

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And then so he's he's he's working for a third

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of a piece of pie, and that's just not going

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to pay the bills. They have two hundred employees, and frankly,

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you know I have more more people will watch this

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on Twitter. Then you know, for his advertising group that

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everybody on TV seems to still think is important that

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eighteen to thirty five group, and it's just that audience

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isn't there anymore. It's I mean, the late night show

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is a relic. But the thing about it which was

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special when I was a kid, you know, when we

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were you know, my family were all, you know, climbing

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mom and Dad's bed and watching TV. Johnny Carson was

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he made the show for everybody. He didn't alienate anyone,

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and you never knew who he kind of thought that

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these guys all leaned left like most of the media,

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but you never knew one hundred percent. And that's kind

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of a beautiful thing. And I hope it goes back

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to that.

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Rosie O'Donnell jumped on Instagram on Sunday and wrote, Hey,

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Tangerine Trump. First you said I should be stripped of

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my citizenship. Now you're publicly celebrating that Stephen Colbert lost

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his job. You've never understood the role of comedy or

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the role of truth. You think isolent seeing a comedian

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means you've won something you haven't. Stephen said up to

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you like so many of us have. Not because it

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was easy, but because it was necessary. He told the

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truth with wit and courage night after night. Well, you

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used your platform to spread fear, lies and hate. John

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Oliver was in Eerie, Pennsylvania. He was part of that

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stunt to rebrand the baseball team the Moon Mammoths. He

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was asked about Stephen Colbert. John Oliver said, I love Steven,

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I love his staff, I love that show. It's incredibly said.

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I'm partly excited to see what they're going to do

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the next ten months. It's terrible, terrible news for the

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world of comedy. Late night shows mean a lot to me,

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not just because I work in them, but because even

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growing up in England, I would watch Letterman Show, which

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of course was Stephen's Show. I think about what a

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glamorous world that was so to have got to be

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on Letterman Show, and Stephen's Show has always been one

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of the most fun things. So it's very very sad news.

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I look forward to seeing what he's going to do next,

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because that man will not stop now. The Wall Street

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Journal jumped in again. I think many things can be

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true at once. My spidy senses tingling with the timing

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here in the merger deal, but also the numbers and

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the financials. As you look at all this, it's not

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crazy talk to end this show. Perhaps there's a scenario

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where you could do some cost cutting or figure something out.

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But the Journal points out Colbert has two point four

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million viewers most nights, less than one percent of the country.

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It's a tiny fraction of Johnny Carson's viewership at a

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time when the nation was smaller. The late show's audience

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has fallen more than thirty percent in the past five years,

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and even more among the eighteen to forty nine s.

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Colbert's operation reportedly costs north of one hundred million dollars

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annually and hemorrhaged forty million dollars last year, nearly half

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being the host salary. The Journal rights America depends on

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a shared sense of Wii boomers and gen X once

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found some of that on late night TV from millennials

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and gen Z. A fragmented media ecosystem that's insufficiently popular

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to sustain a common culture presents real challenges. Any revolution

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would not be televised. It would be streamed from one

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thousand angles across a million platforms. The New Yorker happens

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to have a piece by Stephen Colbert this week. It

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is titled Stephen Colbert and Kenneth Tynan's Profile of Johnny Carson.

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Apparently there was a good profile of Carson in nineteen

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seventy eight. Colbert wrote that article is twenty thousand words.

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It's giving ahead. While I host a show in the

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same time slot and tradition as Carson, I am not Johnny.

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Neither was quote unquote Johnny, who is described as an

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eighth of Carson, the rest being hidden behind midwestern and

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professional recipitudes and protective sodality. A lot of big words

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here of producers, lawyers, and execs who pronounced Johnny a

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reformed drinker, loving son and husband, faithful to the point

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of celibacy. Two or false? Do we care Johnny or Johnny?

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He was there every night like the tide, and we

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loved him. I have the Carson books, I've watched the

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Carson biles. I have a dear friendship with his old

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writer and pure Dick Cavitt. One disappointment. Tynan presents no process.

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How did Johnny arrive at quote between sixteen and twenty

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two short fire jokes per monologue? What happened behind that

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rainbow curtain? I know the articles about the man, not

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the job, but were told the show is Johnny john

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is the show. You'll find that in the print edition

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July twenty eighth, twenty twenty five issue of The New

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Yorker The Town podcast. They did this asn't aside. They

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were talking about the Colbert of it all. They said,

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Mullaney on Netflix was getting five hundred thousand viewers, five

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hundred thousand, five hundred thousand Formulaney. I don't know if

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that thing's coming back. Maybe just with the zeitgeist, they

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think people will rally behind Malani. But like I said,

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when the show was airing season two, I didn't think

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the show was working creatively and I didn't think it

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was really capturing a buzz. And I may have been right.

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Friend of the show, Jason Zinneman in The New York

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Times right, it's getting canceled may end up being the

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best thing that's ever happened to Stephen Colbert. The same

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cannot be said for its impact on late night television.

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His quick, improv honed wit and intellectual depth could feel

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hamstrung by the show's short segments, and sometimes when he

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got on a good riff or dug into an area

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of major interest. You wondered if it would fit better

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on a podcast. Zinneman rights, late night television is not finished.

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In fact, you could say we're reverting to the era

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before the early nineties, when NBC dominated and there were

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occasionally network alternatives. The loss of the late show is

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not the deathnell, but it is a deathnell. If video

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killed the radio star, who did in the network late

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night superstar. The Internet is the primary suspect, increasing competition,

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shipping away at ad dollars, and transforming the time at

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which we watch these shows, making the term late night

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itself a misnomer all caps. Of course, money matters, but

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so does the climate which it's allocated. Late night used

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to be, among other things, a prestige business. The hosts

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were some of the key phases of the network. On

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top of profits, the show's generated press, attention, in house promotion,

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and buzz. Now, media bosses seem more willing to cut

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a check for millions of dollars to make a political

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problem go away, rather than spend that money to keep

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their late night show. Yeah. I talked about this in

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one of the other bonuses. So at some point you

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have to ask the question, who are we Fox shows

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sports and animation. You know, maybe CBS is looking at

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that and going, all right, why don't we just do

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our procedurals from E two eleven. We'll show some football

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during the fall, and why do we have a late

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night show? Not crazy? The Hollywood Reporter wondered what's next

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for Colbert, and they pointed out while he lives in

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New Jersey, he's from South Carolina and one of those

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states Senate seats is open next year. Colbert has joked

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about the idea of running for office for years. When

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asked directly about this in two thousand and seven, Larry

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King asked if Colbert would ever consider running for president,

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and again, that's two thousand and seven, a lifetime ago

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in some ways, Colbert said, obviously, every boy's thought of it.

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And when you look at a field of candidates like this,

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so that's the two thousand and eight campaign, you know,

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and trailed off. I thought about that a lot over

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the weekend. Stephen Colbert is sixty one, so he'd be

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sixty three sixty four when the next election rolls around.

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He's nice looking, he's telegenic, he's good at the art

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of the media. He's not eighty years old. The people

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who don't like him, Rob Schneider apparently already don't like him,

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so there's no loss there. If I'm the Democrats, I'm

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calling Stephen Colbert today. If you're not alreaddy on the

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phone with him, you should be. I don't know if

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he would want the gig, but if they rolled him

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out as a candidate, very interesting. The current holder of

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the office, among other things on his resume, hosted a

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show called The Apprentice and was really good at media

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and look at you head to you tonight Late Nighter

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points out, let's pay a lot of attention to John

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Stewart tonight. Colbert and Stewart are friends. John Stewart is

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an EP on The Late Show. They share the same manager,

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James baby Doll Dixon. We'll see what John has to say.

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And that is a bonus episode back in the morning

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with a normal episode. It was a very busy weekend.

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Just in case you haven't caught everything. Going back Friday

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morning's episode where I recapped Shane Gillis, I thought was strong,

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and then it's just been bonus regular, bonus regular, bonus regular.

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I'll be back in the morning. See then, thanks for listening,