CBS made the shocking announcement last week that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end its run next spring, after a decade, and that the network is ending the Late Show franchise altogether and exiting late-night programming.
CBS positioned the move as a financial decision, but there was much speculation that the real reason was CBS’ parent company, Paramount, wanting to gain favor with the Trump Administration ahead of government approval for the company’s pending merger with Skydance. Colbert is a vocal Trump critic, and his removal follows the recent settlement agreed to by Paramount and Trump over specious claims of “editing” of an interview with Kamala Harris.
On Monday night, Colbert returned to the air for the first new show since the announcement of the show’s end.
In an 11-minute monologue, Colbert joked that “cancel culture has gone too far,” and declared “the gloves are off” for the 10 months he has remaining on the show. Later, Colbert was joined by his fellow talk show hosts Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver.
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“Over the weekend, somebody at CBS followed up their gracious press release with a gracious anonymous leak saying they pulled the plug on our show because of losses pegged between 40 million and $50 million a year. 40 million is a big number. I could see us losing $24 million but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other 16 million? Oh, yeah.,” Colbert joked on the show, referring to the $16 million settlement the company recently paid.
Then, he segued into several minutes of Donald Trump/Jeffrey Epstein jokes.
Also on the show, Colbert responded to Trump tweeting his happiness about the cancellation with an expletive.
Stephen Colbert responds to Donald Trump saying he’s happy ‘The Late Show’ will be canceled:
“Go f*** yourself” pic.twitter.com/2HB56Ns8Xy
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) July 22, 2025
Jon Stewart, on whose Comedy Central show Colbert worked, and later hosted The Colbert Report in the following timeslot, also weighed in on the cancellation of his friend’s show. Comedy Central is also owned by Paramount:
Jon Stewart reacts to CBS cancelling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and tells corporations and advertisers to “sack up” pic.twitter.com/v8MrNpg28w
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 22, 2025
He later performed in front of a church choir:
Jon Stewart responded to CBS bowing down to Trump and canceling Colbert pic.twitter.com/hV1qoZ40Da
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) July 22, 2025
Photo courtesy of an X screenshot.
