July 22, 2025

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart Reactions to Cancellation of 'The Late Show'

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mac covers Stephen Colbert's satirical response to Donald Trump and the unexpected cancellation of 'The Late Show.' Colbert joked about his newfound freedom to be open about his opinions, especially about Trump, now that the show is ending. He raised questions about the financial rationale behind CBS's decision, despite 'The Late Show' being number one in ratings. The episode also features comments from Jon Stewart, fellow late-night hosts, and industry insiders, all pondering the financial and political implications of the show's cancellation.

00:15 Colbert's Response to Trump
00:36 Colbert's Monologue Highlights
01:38 Weird Al and Audience Reactions
02:42 John Stewart's Take on the Cancellation
05:57 Industry Reactions and Speculations
08:05 Public and Celebrity Reactions

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Callaroga Shark Media. Yes it's another Stephen Colbert based a

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bonus episode. Hello, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news.

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On The Late Show Monday night, Stephen Colbert responded to

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Donald Trump. You may recall that Trump was happy that

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the Late Show was ending. Colbert said, how dare you, sir?

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Would an untalented man be able to compose the following

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satirical wisdom. Colbert then turned to a different camera labeled

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Eloquence Cam and declared, go f yourself. Oh, there were

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a lot of F bombs last night. We will get

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to that. In his monologue, Stephen Colbert said, folks, so

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I'm gonna go ahead and say it. Cancer culture has

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gone too far. He then talked about how he can

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go scorched earth over the next ten months until the

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show ends and said, the gloves are off, I can

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finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I

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really think about Donald Trump. Starting now. He looks into

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the camera and says, I don't care for him. Colbert

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thanked CBS for its support throughout the years, but then,

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but how could it be purely a financial decision? If

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the Late Show's number one in ratings. It's confusing. A

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lot of folks are asking that question, mainly my staff's

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parents and spouses. He noted that CBS quote followed up

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their gracious press release with a gracious anonymous leak and

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then showed screenshots of sources telling The New York Post

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that the show loses between forty and fifty million dollars

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a year. Colbert said, forty million's a big number. I

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could see us losing twenty four million. But where would

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Paramount have possibly spent the other sixteen million With those numbers,

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I gotta say it makes sense would be canceled. I

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get it, guys, and thanks again, Okay, thanks to the

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network outcome. I guess weird. Al Yankovic and Lin Manuel Miranda.

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They came out to play some cold play. Then the

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camera panned through the audience and caught various duos in

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the audience including C A NX, Anderson Cooper and Bravos,

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Andy Cohen, NBC's Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers, John Oliver

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with John Stewart, and Adam Sandler with Christopher MacDonald also

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in the audience. T I'm the insult comic Dog. Then

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any camera up and to a cartoon of Trump hugging

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the Paramount logo. A producer hands Colbert a piece of paper.

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He says, stop playing. I'm sorry. I just got this

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note from corporate. Your song has been canceled. It says

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here this is purely a financial decision. It says that

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since you started playing that song, the network has lost

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and I don't know how this is possible forty to

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fifty million dollars. Miranda said, that's impossible. That song was

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a number one song. Tell me this has nothing to

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do with who we just put a spotlight on. Colbert said,

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there's nothing here that mentions that Colbert told Lynn and

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weird Al. The note says some very nice things about

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you guys, performance, quality, stature, irreplaceable, signed yours truly the

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Paramount Family of Global Entertainment Properties and AI Weapons Systems.

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On The Daily Show, John Stewart said, I'm not giving in.

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I'm not going anywhere. I think. Let's listen to pieces

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of John's monologue. I have absolutely trimmed this down. It

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does get a tad naughty at one point not too bad,

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and John increasingly dropped f bombs, which I trimmed of.

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You may or may not know. Stephen and I worked

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together on this very program. Both of our shows reached

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an inflection point in twenty fifteen. Stephen chose to challenge

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himself by seeing if he could succeed the legendary David Letterman,

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and quite frankly, a much bigger pond than the one

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he and I had been swimming in. And I quit,

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I quit.

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I quit.

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Stephen challenged him, I passed away. Stephen challenged his abilities

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in the biggest field you could, and I literally went

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to a farm upstate. And now, and now Stephen has

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been canceled for purely financial reasons. And by the way,

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not just Stephen's show, CBS has canceled the entire of

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the late show franchise Gone now, I acknowledge losing money.

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Late night TV is a struggling financial model. We are

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all basically operating a blockbuster Kiosk inside of a Tower Records.

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But when your.

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Industry is faced with changes, you don't just call it

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a day. My god, when cens stopped selling, they didn't

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just go, oh, well, music, it's been a good run.

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The fact that CBS didn't try to save their number

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one rated network late night franchise, that's been on the

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air for over three decades. Is part of what's making

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everybody wonder was this purely financial or maybe the path

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of least resistance for your eight billion dollar merger. Look,

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I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that

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you and your advertisers have with eight billion dollars at stake,

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but understand this truly, the shows that you now seek

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to cancel, censor in control, A not insignificant portion of

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that eight billion dollar value came from those shows. That's

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what made you that money. Shows that say something, shows

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that take a stand, shows that are unafraid and not

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to believe me. This is not a we speak truth

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to power. We don't we speak opinions to television cameras,

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but we try every night. And if you believe, as

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corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous

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that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you

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will never again be on the Boy King's radar A

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why will anyone watch you? And you are wrong?

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David Letterman has weighed in on his own way. On

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Letterman's YouTube account, he posted multiple Colbert and CBS related videos.

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He then put out a twenty minute super cut making

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fun of the network decaption you can't spell CBS without BS.

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It'll be interesting when Letterman actually speaks about this. Jimmy Kimmel,

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who's on family vacation, slamm Donald Trump. From said vacation.

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Kim Will shared a family photo from an anti Trump

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protest and referenced a two thousand and three letter that

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the president allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. Kimmell's Instagram caption read,

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may every day be another wonderful secret, which references a

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line from the letter that Trump allegedly wrote, according to

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The Wall Street Journal. In the photo, Kimmel and wife

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Molly are pictured in anti Trump shirts, each member of

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the families holding a sign. Phrases include don't bend the knee,

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make America good again, and I wish we had a

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better president. Jimmy Fallon opened up his show saying, I

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am your host, well at least for tonight. I don't

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like what's going on one bit crazy times. In the monologue,

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fell in joke to Seebeest could lose millions of viewers

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plus tens of hundreds watching on Paramount. Plus Stephen has

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done years of incredibly smart and hilarious television, and he's

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won ten Emmys. Trump heard this and was like, big deal.

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Last week I won a FIFA World Cup trophy. More

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than eighty seven thousand people have signed a petition on

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move on dot org demanding the Late Show stay on

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the air. Eighty seven Thousand's not going to do it.

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Late Nighter had some other numbers. On Tuesday morning. They say,

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at last count, more than two dozen different petitions had

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sprung up on change dot org, collectively drawing over thirty

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six thousand signatures. That's not going to do it. They

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add that a petition on the Progressive Change Campaign Committee

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has passed one hundred and twenty thousand signatures. All that

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adds up to roughly the two hundred thousand people in

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the eighteen to forty nine's that were watching the show.

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Many things can be true at once. We can all

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support Stephen Colbert, we can all have our spidy senses

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up about the merger stuff. But also, if the numbers

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are anywhere near accurate, there's a lot of money to

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lose for two hundred thousand people in the eighteen to

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forty nine says the guy who's older than that. Demo

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outside the ed Sullivan Theater on Monday afternoon, a group

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of protesters assembled, chanting Colbert stays Trump must go. They

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were organized by a group called Refuse Fascism. One of

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the organizers told WCBS News, we are trying to wake

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up the people. Too many people accepting this and saying,

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you know, Colbert will miss you. Actually, we can't accept this.

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This is illegitimate. Prior to the protest, they had circulated

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a flyer which said this has the pungent odor of

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appeasement to fascism, unconscionable. Andy Cohen, I think is speaking

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truth and logic. He said, so suddenly, the show's losing

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forty million dollars a year and they're going to cancel it. Typically,

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what would happen if a show's losing money that is

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also super important to the network. What they would probably

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do is say, listen, Steve In, your show's losing x

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amount of money a year. There's two things we could do.

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We could cut the budget in half, maybe move out

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of the ed Sullivan Theater, do the show in a

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small studio. Cut down on staff. You have two hundred

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people working here. We needed to be one hundred or sixty.

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Instead of doing your show five days a week, we're

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gonna do your show four days pre take your Thursday show,

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so you're actually in production three days a week. That's

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a way right there, to cut the budget at least

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in half. I don't know about half. I'd have to

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look at the numbers, but yeah, that doesn't sound crazy

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to me. Cohen continued as opposed to saying out of nowhere,

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as Colbert portrayed it, they called him and said, your

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show's losing money. We're canceling it a year. Instead, they're

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turning the lights out completely at eleven thirty, which says

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to me, CBS is just cooked. I mean it's cooked.

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They're saying we're done. Letterman's old producer, Robert Nett till

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deadline when we started the Late Show in nineteen ninety three.

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We have the same goals. Everyone doing talk shows has

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make people laugh and never threaten a corporate merger. If

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Colbert ad been number one at an Emmy two days prior,

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none of this would have happened for Night ads. While

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the financial landscape of Late Night has undeniably changed, I

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don't think you dismissed a talent like Stephen Colbert in

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this manner, it just doesn't make sense. Steven is as

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good as it gets. He'll be heard from for many

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years to come. They should choose their adversaries more wisely.

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That is your bonus episode today. If you missed it,

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there was a normal episode in the feed earlier today,

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and I'll be back tomorrow morning with your regular daily

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comedy news. See then.