Former President Donald Trump didn’t hold back Friday as he celebrated the end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, taking to Truth Social to mock the longtime host following CBS’s announcement that the show would end in May 2026.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once-great Tonight Show.”
Colbert, who has frequently criticized Trump throughout his run on The Late Show, took over the program in 2015 from David Letterman. Over the years, his show became a regular platform for Democratic guests. Just last month, Colbert welcomed New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a socialist who went on to win the Democratic nomination. On the same day his show’s cancellation was announced, his guest was California Senator Adam Schiff.
CBS’s parent company Paramount Global said the decision to end The Late Show was “purely financial,” citing difficulties in the late-night TV market. The network emphasized that the move had nothing to do with Colbert’s performance, content, or recent political controversies.
Still, Colbert didn’t shy away from addressing the rumors. On a recent episode, he joked about speculation that a planned merger between Paramount and Skydance Media could lead to pressure from the Trump-aligned new ownership. “Some TV bloggers are saying that once Skydance gets CBS, the new bosses will want to pressure me,” Colbert said. “How are they going to pressure me… if they can’t find me?”
He also called Paramount’s recent legal settlement with the Trump administration a “big fat bribe,” further fueling speculation about behind-the-scenes tensions at the network.
Meanwhile, Fox News’s Gutfeld! continues to soar in the ratings, becoming late-night’s most-watched show in 2025. In the second quarter, Gutfeld! averaged 3 million viewers at 10 p.m. ET and outperformed competitors like The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show, and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Fox News has now led all basic cable in total daily viewers for 17 consecutive quarters, averaging 1.6 million viewers daily—more than MSNBC and CNN combined.Tools
