At Issue - What Stephen Colbert’s cancellation says about Trump’s America | Analysis from Washington

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

CBC’s weekly podcast, Two Blocks from the White House, takes a clear-eyed look at what’s happening in the U.S. right now and what it means for Canadians. In this episode, the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs this week. It’s being called the end of an era, and some critics say the cancellation of the iconic late night talk show represents a broader attack on dissent during Donald Trump’s second administration. Washington correspondents Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter and Willy Lowry ask: What, if anything, does Colbert’s cancellation say about the state of free speech in Trump’s America?Find and follow Two Blocks from the White House wherever you get your podcasts, or here: https://link.mgln.ai/2BFTWHxAtIssue0526

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No, not today. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva. This is a CBC podcast. Hey, everyone, we are back here in this feed with another episode of the CBC's weekly podcast, two blocks from the White House, the show that takes a clear-eyed view at what's happening in the U.S. right now and, of course, what it means for Canadians. This week, Washington Correspondents, Katie Simpson, Paul Hunter, and Willie Lowry

talk about the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airing this week. Some call at the end of an era. Others argue the cancellation of the iconic late-night show reflects a broader attack on dissent during Donald Trump's second administration. What, if anything, does Colbert's cancellation say about the state of free speech in Trump's America? Let's take a listen. Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending the late show in May.

And yeah, I share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of the late show on CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away. That was Stephen Colbert back in July of last year. And now, 10 months later, the last episode of The Late Show is Thursday. It is the end of an era. It is controversial.

And some would argue what is happening in this moment is representative of some broader challenges in America around free speech and dissent. And the day after the cancellation was announced, Donald Trump seemingly reveled in it. He took to truth social and said, quote, I absolutely love that Stephen Colbert got fired. Of course, that is one of his favorite words. And it's not just Colbert, right? Trump has that a lot to say about other late night TV hosts as well, notably Jimmy Kimmel just last month, calling for him to be, as Trump put it, fired immediately. So whether or not you watch late night TV, and that is part of this broader discussion. There is something going on here that is worth paying attention to.

And that is why on today's episode, we are asking, what does Stephen Colbert's last show say about Trump's America? I'm Katie Simpson. I'm Willie Lowry. And I'm Paul Hunter. We are CBC's Washington correspondence, two blocks from the White House. All right, Willie, I want to start with you. What has the reaction been like since the cancellation of the late show with Stephen Colbert was first announced last summer? Well, we obviously have the president's reaction, which was somewhat gleeful, but the late-night fraternity kind of rallied around Colbert and has continued to support him really over the last 10 months.

The first show that he did after the making the announcement, in fact, he had Jimmy Fallon, Seth Myers, John Stewart, John Oliver, and Andy Cohen all in attendance. That's kind of like the, what's the word? Doyons of late night television. Do you know, did I say that right? Freaking me out, man. Do you know that one? No idea what you're talking about, Willie. Keep going on.

Yeah, yeah. That's really all I had to say on this matter. No, but this is, we're in a moment right, where late night seems to be under threat and the stars have kind of coalesced around each other. And that may be the case in this moment. But Paul, let's set the table here. what did CBS and Paramount say about the canceling of the Colbert show? Sure. And so Paramount owns CBS.

We should say that off the bat. Look, the stated argument from Paramount was that it's a purely financial decision. The show, like many such TV shows, cost a lot of money to produce. And this, you know, being 2026, TV industry broadly is spiraling. I think there's no denying that. Ad revenue, therefore, was dropping. importantly, as we heard in that clip from Colbert off the top, it wasn't like they were just going to change the host or tweak the show.

They were going to get rid of it altogether and replace it by a show that already exists elsewhere that will be just not given to CBS. So again, the argument from Paramount was that it was financial, that Colbert was losing money, that the new show will be a way to make money. The problem was, no one believed that, not least Colbert. And it came, though, interestingly enough, as the ratings were trending upwards. Highest rated, no, the highest rated late night comedy talk show on regular television. So, yeah, that was a notch in their belt.

And that's what, I think that's what made so many people say, what are you talking about, Paramount? That can't be true. It seems like a bad business decision given the ratings. Yeah. And the timing of the cancellations raised a lot of questions, right, Katie? Yeah. So we're going to go on a little bit of a journey here. A journey.

We're going to go on a journey. Buggler. I likes me in my journey. Exactly. We need to start last summer and we need to introduce Canadians to a man named Larry Ellison. He is a tech billionaire and he runs his media empire very closely with his son, David Ellison, who heads up Paramount. And it's, of course, a media giant. It is the parent company of CBS, the company that airs the late show.

And of course, CBS News. Ellison, we need to point out, is a Trump ally and a supporter of the president. So last summer, last July, Larry Ellison needs something from the Trump administration. He has been waiting to see if the FCC, the federal body that regulates the communications industry, if it will approve this all-important $8 billion merger with Skydance. It would create this massive media conglomerate, and Larry Ellison wants it to happen. A lot of money is on the line here. And so what happens as Larry Ellison is waiting for this decision to be made, a decision that will be made by the FCC, which the chair of the FCC is a Trump appointed person who is very strongly aligned with the president.

Brendan Carr. So Ellison seems to make some moves that are widely viewed as currying favor with the president and with the Trump administration. So we're going to go to July 2nd. CBS announces it will settle a $16 million lawsuit, paying that money to President Trump after he had complained about the news program 60 Minutes. He did not like an edit they did on an interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election campaign. He complained that it was unfair, that it was favorable to her, and he launched this lawsuit. And so in July of last year, Paramount announced, OK, you know what, we are going to settle this lawsuit. This lawsuit was extremely controversial because Paramount's own lawyers had said the case was without merit.

It was widely thought that CBS would win this easily, that it was a nuisance lawsuit. That's one way that Stephen Colbert had described it. Interviews are edited for news broadcast regularly. It's a regular thing. Exactly. And so this case gets a lot of attention and it gets Stephen Colbert's attention. And within a couple of weeks, still in the month of July, He does a monologue on his program where he criticized the decision by CBS by Paramount to make this move.

And he described it as a big, fat bribe. Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe. And he specifically links it to the parent company wanting this merger to go forward, that this was transactional. he makes a joke and makes an argument that that was the case. Just a long history of, you know, the hosts kind of poking fun at the parent company, David Letterman, who founded the show, did that numerous times as well. And so, and also it's comedy. It's free speech. You, you know, you stand up and you criticize your own company that that might come with some challenges. It is a private sector company. They can do what they like. But it is, it is America. Welcome to free speech.

So not long after Stephen Colbert describes it as a big. fat bribe. It was announced that CBS is ending the late show with Colbert. And as you guys mentioned, it was part, they described it as a financial decision. Trump celebrates saying I absolutely love that Colbert got fired because remember Trump has frequently criticized whether they are public entertainers, whether they are comedians, whether they are hosts, whether they are politicians. No matter who comes forward with the criticism, we have seen Donald Trump really bristle under that criticism and lash out, particularly on social media or when he's in front of cameras.

And so... Which is frequently. And so remember, this happens. This announcement happens as Larry Allison is still waiting to find out whether the FCC, that federal body with the chair appointed by Trump, is going to approve this very important merger. Within that same month, that same month after the $16 million settlement, after Colbert's show is coming to an end.

Before the end of the month, the FCC approves this big merger, this $8 billion deal. And so that is why people are looking at this. You look at the context around this and look at all these things that are, you know, being done to possibly, possibly curry favor with the Trump administration. It gets to the heart of, you know, what kind of media exists ecosystem are we experiencing in this moment? and what happens to individuals who are, you know, presenting opinions that the president might not like? Two things. One. That was a good journey. I was just good. That was my number one.

That was a lot to explain, Katie. But that's, you know, my number two, which is that critics of Trump would say, funny how that works, right? And there's a lot of people who just think that, yeah, that's what's going on. That's what's really driving all this. You know, Willie Katie mentioned a number of times in that, the FCC. And we talked before sitting coming down in the studio about how. we're going to get into the weeds a little bit here. Well, this is deep in the weeds, but they're important weeds to get into.

So I'm going to, lucky you. How does the FCC play into all of this? In this Trump 2.0 administration, the FCC has taken on a bit of a kind of more prominent role than in years past. And so what's happening is that essentially Democrats will have accused the FCC of kind of being politicized. and really weaponized against Trump's detractors. So you have the FCC going after ABC or affiliates broadcasting Jimmy Kimmel for comments that he made. But it kind of goes beyond just that. Back in March during the kind of early weeks of the Iran war,

Brendan Carr threatened to review the licensing of some of these stations for broadcasting unfavorable coverage of the Trump administration during the war. I mean, that's something that is almost unheard of. And so you have this federal body that some will accuse of trying to do the bidding of Donald Trump and to sort of enforce or promote a view that the Trump administration wants to project. By the way, to jump in, that's what's different about this moment, right? I mean, the heads, the historically speaking, the heads of the FCC have always been appointed by the current administration. What sets this moment apart is that previously, maybe it was in the background, but certainly more pronounced than ever, it has become politicized. And that is one factor of what's going on here. And back in February, that sort of element of things, Stephen Colbert sort of ran into another challenge with his broadcast managers, the overlour, shall we call them? Over content that he wanted on his program.

Exactly. Have a listen to this. You know, who is not one of my guests tonight? That's Texas State Representative James Tala Rico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this.

Paul, it sounds like something out of it just, so what is this all about, Paul? Well, first of all, James Tolariko, the Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate in the coming midterms. Young guy, very religious. practices, I think Christian politics is a way to put it. And certainly someone that the Democrats are hoping finally can turn Texas their way. There's a lot of reason to think that he might do it. And you've seen my map about the upcoming Senate races. Willie, Texas is a very good map.

Texas is one that I think Democrats still like to dream about. So anyway, so Colbert was going to have Tala Rico on a show. And then this issue became all about what's known in the, by the FCC, as the equal time rule. And by the way, the CRTC has a kind of equivalent known as the equitable time rule. It's all about being fair when it comes to political guests on the air. And by the way, this applies only to radio and television. The exception to the rule is news programs or some exceptions. There are a few.

news programs and interview shows. It's okay to have guests without necessarily equal time, but if James Tallerica were to be the host of Colbert's show for a week, that would be different. But what happened was, back to the FCC, Brendan Carr issued guidance saying that maybe this exception for interview shows doesn't apply or ought not apply. And that message evidently got through to CBS,

which said to Colbert, effectively speaking, maybe you should think twice about doing this. CBS later said, you didn't order Colbert to keep Tala Rico off the air, but there was a conversation. And in the end, it did not go on the air. Interestingly, Tala RICO did go on YouTube because these rules don't apply for streaming because it's a new platform.

But again, what's left over, what was inferred, was again this chill, that we're watching you. You better be careful. You better listen to what we say. If we don't like something you're doing, you better behave properly. And that again, back to the central theme of this conversation, seems to go against everything in this country regards to the First Amendment and the right to free speech.

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podcast. It's important to note. It's not just CBS, right? Other networks are facing the same issues. Katie, I alluded to or referenced earlier, Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. Can we talk a little bit about what happened there? Yeah, we're going to go on another little journey here. And we're going to go back to. I'm just going to buckle up. Exactly. So if we're doing July, Colbert happened in July, this is September. Okay. It's September 2025. And it is just after Charlie Kirk, the right wing podcaster, political organizer and very staunch Trump ally is assassinated while, you know, doing a speech at a university. And in a montage in an opening monologue that Jimmy Kimmel did in the days that followed that, he made what he describes as a joke about MAGA, Trump's political movement, trying to score political points with an attack on the suspect who was facing charges in that murder.

This is when the FCC, Brennan Carr, steps in, he goes on a podcast and he criticizes Kimmel saying that his comments are the sickest. conduct possible, and then he starts making threats directed at the stations and the network that carry Jimmy Kimmel live. And that is when we start to see immediate reaction. Jimmy Kimmel's show is suspended indefinitely at first. He'd be off the air for nearly a week and then returned. He also was very clear to make the point, saying, is this about silencing dissent? Is this an attack on free speech, even if he says, listen, my comments may have been interpreted as ill-timed. He also said, you know, a government trying to silence a comedian, the president doesn't like, is anti-American.

I've had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians and talk show hosts from countries like Russia, countries in the Middle East, who tell me they would get thrown in prison for making fun of those in power and worse than being thrown in prison. They know how lucky we are here. Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country. And that's something I'm embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air. That's not legal. That's not American. That is un-American. And it's so dangerous. And so you have what's gone on with Stephen Colbert. You have a media ecosystem where the parent company wants this big,

huge merger to be approved, doing things that might appease the president. And then in this case, you have a situation where the president and his supporters are angry. He's long not liked Jimmy Kimmel, but this seemed to be something that really sort of Donald Trump and the mega movement could seize on because people were so, so angry about the murder of Charlie Kirk. But one thing I want to add is, I went and covered the funeral of Trump. Charlie Kirk. And it had happened when I believe the funeral was held in and around the time that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended. And so one of the things that I asked people who'd gathered to mourn at Turning Point, which was the organization that Charlie Kirk had run, I sort of wanted to ask them to get a sense of, you know, what do you make of this? So much of what Charlie Kirk was about was about free speech, even if you didn't like it, even if you didn't agree. And a lot of people will be very critical of that description of Charlie Kirk, thinking that I'm being far too generous and terms of how he spoke because he did say some things that people find a lot deeply, deeply offensive. But when I talk to these people who are there to pay their respects to Charlie Kirk,

they said things, well, like this is, we experienced this on the flip side of things, cancel culture, when people lost their jobs because they said things that their employer or the mainstream didn't like that they found offensive, taking cancel culture to target people in our media ecosphere on the right wing. And now we're seeing people. This is just, you know, time has seen it happen on the other side now. Except the historic thing in this country. And by the way, it was David Letterman, I think, who said he cannot, he could not think of a president.

You know, they attacked Bill Clinton in these comedy shows and George W. Bush mercilessly and others, right, could not think of another time where this climate emerged. You know, the history in this country has always been, you can have your opinion. And you can express it. And I will fight for that right to express that, even if I vehemently disagree with it. And that's what's changed now with the people that you met, right? But like effectively they're saying, unless I've misunderstood, you can't, other people ought not say those things. I mean, I've heard it from the left and the right. Right. I've heard it at Trump rallies. You get pushback from people and the thumbs down and the CNN sucks as they look you in the eye and things like that. But I mean, I had it from the Occupy Wall Street people as well. I did it. I was doing a standup down at free. Plaza here one night and they were trying to, and it was when there was all the tents and everybody was camping out and I was, I started to say my stand up and they all started shouting to disrupt me. And I said, what's like, can you give me just a minute here? And they said, well, who are you? Are you Fox or CNN? And I said, well, I'm CBC Canadian. And they said, oh, okay, that's okay then. And they all said, went tools down. And I said, what made you think I was

Fox or CNN? It's the hair. They said, because you spoke English. And I said, I don't even know what that means. But the point is, pushback against free speech in this country has been around for a, has been increasing for a while now as the country gets more and more divided, but it does come from both sides, which I find interesting. But it is interesting to see these late night hosts kind of emerge as the great defenders of it, of free speech. Yeah. Back in 2022, John Stewart, another late-night comedian host who many people quite enjoy. He received the Mark Twain Prize, and I want you guys to listen to something he said during the acceptance speech.

Comedy doesn't change the world, but it's a bellwether. We're the banana peel and the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It's just a reminder to people that democracy is under threat. authoritarian are the threat to comedy

to art to music to thought to poetry to progress to all those things so Paul I would ask you

if anything does the late show's demise say anything do you think about free speech in America right now well I mean

I think that gets to the heart of this whole conversation doesn't it I mean it certainly feels under threat

I don't know if I've said this story before on this podcast but remember once back in 2009 after the shooting at Fort Hood and we went down, like 13 dead, on a military base. And we drove up and we're trying to get to where the shooting happened and

we get to the gate and it's all, you know, yellow taped off and stuff like that. And there's soldiers and stopping anybody from getting in. And I thought, well, that's it. I guess we go back to our hotel and so much for trying. And then the guy got to our car and he said, who are you with him? And he said, well, we're journalists with the CBC. And he said, okay, in you go. And we started driving. I said to, I said, stop for a second. And I ended my window and I said to the soldier, well, thanks for letting us in. And I didn't, I wasn't really expecting to be allowed in. And he said, echoing what John Stewart said in that clip, he said, we believe that free speech is the basis for democracy. And I thought, holy cow. I was brand new down here

at the time. I thought, welcome to America, man. Like here's a soldier at the edge of a military base where there just been this mass shooting. It's all yellow taped off. And he says, in you go, because your job is important to democracy. So back to your question, Katie, it just feels, you know, we talk, how many times we talk about gun rights in this country? It's the second amendment. The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the right to free speech. And that feels under threat. To go back to David Letterman, he was talking about how he couldn't think of another time any president had ever pushed back against late night comedy. Letterman also said that the great mystery right now is why more people aren't standing up against this.

And that's where this becomes, it's something we've talked about on this podcast before, where are the demonstrations against this, right? Colbert is finished this week. Something else will be in its place and life will kind of go on. Why aren't people, David Letterman would say, why aren't people standing up? And to me, and I think to a lot of people, that says, I don't know what the word is, that that's as sobering as anything else that's going on right now. And it's colliding at the same time with a media ecosystem that is the traditional media ecosystem that is just completely not, you know, it's not sustainable the way it was. You know, people still want to be informed and entertained, but instead of, you know, sitting in front of the TV for a couple of hours, they're doom scrolling before bed.

And it's just people still want those things. They want to know what's going on in their world and they want to, you know, they want to laugh. They want to know. But at the same time, it's just people aren't consuming it anymore. And it's just a reminder that we are in this moment where it's a collision of a crisis on a crisis. I also think people don't tell me how to think. Tell me facts. Tell me.

Give me information and I can decide how to think. And I think that's part of where a lot of people draw the line. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to think. Just tell me facts. Just tell me truths. And then I can decide. You sound like a former CBS employee by the name of Walter Cronkite.

Is that because I've got gray hair? What's going on? No. You know, all about the facts. I mean, that is journalism at its core, right? Okay. I think we shall leave the conversation there for now. But before we go, we have received a number of questions from the audience.

about how journalists respond or not respond when Donald Trump calls them names. He's called journalists stupid, piggy, horrible person. Ben in Regina, Sue in Vancouver, were wondering what we thought about this. And so did Claire Campbell in Pennsylvania. She writes, When the U.S. president or those in his administration disparage, insult, and demean journalists, notably but not exclusively female journalists, why is there not a response? My answer? It's a great question. And I'm not surprised a bunch of people have written in with it. Look, I say you do your job. And your job is to ask questions about the issues of the day. If you, if not, then the conversation in that scrum or that gaggle, as they call it down here, becomes about the word piggy or about the word stupid or horrible or whatever. If you're not doing your job and asking about Iran or tariffs or the economy, then I think you're failing journalism.

If you want to consider that to be bait, don't take the bait because if you do, you've lost. Yeah, I mean, I think that's spot on. It's about not taking the bait. You're there to ask the president tough questions, to ask the administration tough questions, to try and find new information on important issues and the rhetoric out of the White House. The name calling is quite simply a distraction. The thing is that if you are going to be a journalist, particularly a political journalist,

you need to be very comfortable with the fact that people are going to say things that are really terrible about you. And you have to remember, it's never about you. Never. No journalist wants to become to the story under any circumstances. And that is why you're seeing people not sort of fight back because it's a distraction. It takes away from the story.

And we are here to get answers for the public so that they can make decisions about their lives. You can't ever make anything about yourself. Get comfortable with the fact that people, you know, people do this in Donald Trump does this on camera. People do this behind the scenes. You're a political reporter and you do a story that some politician doesn't like. I have examples from being in Canada where political staffers, we had done a story that I'm not going to get too specifically into the details. But a political staffer didn't like a story that I had done.

and she had been tasked by her boss to call me up and basically give me hell. And so what I did was I put my phone on speakerphone. I was in my kitchen. I was washing my dishes. I put the phone on mute. Let her say her thing. My story was factually sound. She just didn't like it because it made her boss look bad.

This happens. It just happens. Great question. Thanks to Claire, Ben and Sue for getting in touch with us and for listening to the podcast. And I just wanted to clarify something quickly from last week's episode. I talked about being in the basement of comet ping pong, the place where, of course, those conspiracy theorists believed was home to a pedophile sex ring. So the place doesn't have a full basement. It's actually a room in the back. You got to go down a very small flight of steps to get to.

But anybody who has gone to a three-year-old's birthday feels like you're in some sort of emotional basis. Okay. If you have something you would like to ask or have feedback, or questions about architecture of ping pong places in D.C. You can send us an email, send us a note to WashingtonPod, all one word, at cbc.ca.ca. That is WashingtonPod at cbc.com.com. Or leave us a comment on Spotify. And if you like what you're hearing, spread the word, tell a friend about this podcast, and follow us on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

And quickly, you know, we talked about Colpere getting canceled. You know what? What? Didn't get canceled this week? What's that, Willie? I have no idea. The Montreal Canadian season. That's right, folks.

We live to fight another day. You can't help yourself. I can't because are we so happy? Montreal people, man. So excited. All right, that's enough. Okay, thanks you too. I'll see you next time.

Thanks, Katie. See you too. That was this week's episode of two blocks from the White House, which is where the CBC Bureau is located. To keep up with the latest news coming out of Washington, find and follow. that show, that podcast, wherever you get your podcast, so you don't miss an episode. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.