President Donald Trump is gloating over CBS’s decision to cancel The Late Show.
The abrupt cancellation, which blindsided its host, Stephen Colbert, has been described as a win for Trump, who has been the most frequent subject of the show’s late-night jokes and criticism in recent years.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Trump’s reaction to the CBS announcement—made Thursday afternoon—was a bit tardy, but understandable. He was up late that night, desperately defending himself against a report in The Wall Street Journal that accused him of writing a detailed happy birthday letter to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
Still, Trump was not going to let Colbert—a longtime MAGA critic—have his show cancelled without rubbing it in the 61-year-old’s face. Colbert will have plenty of opportunities to take final digs at the president, as The Late Show will continue to air through May 2026.
Some Democrats, including California Sen. Adam Schiff, have theorized that CBS parent company Paramount canceled Colbert’s show “for political reasons.” The conglomerate is on the verge of being acquired by Skydance—a move that requires approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
“If Paramount and CBS ended The Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know,” Schiff said Thursday. “And deserves better.”
Paramount has already been accused of bending to Trump’s will once this term. It settled a lawsuit by Trump for $16 million earlier this month—drama stemming from a 60 Minutes report that Trump alleged was deceptively edited to aid former Vice President Kamala Harris. Many experts believe CBS would have prevailed in court had the suit not been settled.
Colbert’s show had not been struggling in recent ratings. LateNighter reported Monday that The Late Show was the only U.S. late-night show to “draw more total viewers in Q2 than it had in the first quarter of 2025.” In that quarter, Colbert averaged 2.42 million viewers per episode—more than ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! (1.77 million) and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (1.19 million).
Trump claimed in his post that he’s caught wind that Kimmel, another harsh critic of his, will be next to get the ax, though there are no credible reports to back that up. Unsurprisingly, the president also declared that Greg Gutfeld’s program on Fox News is his favorite for late-night TV.
“Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” Trump wrote.
