Rabat – Donald Trump reveled in the downfall of “The Late Show”, portraying it as a long-overdue collapse of liberal-leaning late-night TV. 

Trump has been ridiculed and called out by late show hosts for decades, so naturally he is not the biggest fan.

In a Truth Social post, the US President wrote, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”

CBS and Paramount reported that after a decade of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, the last episode will be streamed come the end of May next year. No new host will be replacing Colbert and “The Late Show” will be coming to its final end after 33 years.

CBS announced that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision.” However, speculations of strong political impact surfaced immediately because less than a year earlier Trump had posted that “CBS should terminate his contract.” 

“Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” he stated in the same post where he degrades NBC’s Jimmy Fallon and instead glorifies conservative hosts on Fox News.

As of the second half of 2025, The Late Show is the most-watched talk show during the 11:35 p.m. timeslot, averaging nearly 2.5 million viewers. Gutfeld’s Fox News show airs an hour before, averaging roughly 3.3 million viewers.

Paramount’s Late Show fans gather outside the theater in midtown Manhattan to protest the decision and suspicions that this is about much more than just budget cuts. It is well known that Trump and Gutfeld are longtime friends. 

The company’s decision caused additional shocks and inclinations that there is something much deeper than just television becoming a declining field. 

Reportedly, the cancellation comes just weeks after Paramount agreed to a settlement of $16 million (around MAD 156 million following Trump’s lawsuit over the “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, which he claimed was deceptively edited by CBS News during the 2024 presidential race.

The Writers Guild of America East and the Writers Guild of America West urged the New York state attorney general on Friday to investigate Paramount over “potential wrongdoing.” 

“Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval,” wrote the unions in a statement on their website.

“Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society.”

US Senator for California, Adam Schiff, was the guest on the show when Colbert broke the news. 

“If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know,” Schiff wrote in an X post.

There has been no further comment from Paramount reinforcing their announcement that this was solely a financial decision, so in the meantime fans will continue to speculate and hope for a turnaround.