David Letterman calls out CBS' 'pure cowardice' for canceling 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'
Appearing on his former executive producer's podcast, "The Barbara Gaines Show," on Friday, Letterman — who created The Late Show 32 years ago — said he didn't believe the network's claim that the show was canceled for financial reasons, and he sharply criticized both CBS and Paramount for their handling of the situation.
"This is pure cowardice," Letterman said. "They did not do the correct thing. They did not handle Stephen Colbert — the face of that network — in the way he deserves to have been handled."
The former "Late Show" host tore into Paramount's $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over the editing of a "60 Minutes" interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, stating that the company "decided they didn't care about freedom of the press."
Letterman theorized that Skydance Media, the soon-to-be owners of Paramount, wanted to avoid trouble with Trump by getting rid of Colbert, an outspoken critic of the president, before officially acquiring the company. He referred to the founder of Skydance, David Ellison, as "the Oracle twins" during his blistering takedown of the company.
"The Ellison twins, the Oracle boys, they don't want any trouble along the lines of freedom of the press or free speech or freedom of expression," he claimed. "They don't want to get their hands dirty. They don't want the government going after them, because that concept of freedom of the press and freedom of speech — that's so old-fashioned."
In a hypothetical conversation between Skydance's owner and CBS executives, Letterman laid out how he thought the conversation about getting rid of Colbert may have gone.
"So they say to the CBS people, 'Geez, what about that kid, Stephen Colbert? He's always shooting his mouth off about the administration. We don't want any trouble from that guy,'" he said. "So the CBS people say, 'Hey, boys, here's what I'm going to do. Not only are we going to get rid of that guy, we're going to get rid of the entire franchise so you don't have to worry about another guy. It's gone, buddy.'"
Although "The Late Show" was reported to be losing approximately $40 million a year for the network, Letterman didn't seem to believe that was an appropriate excuse to cancel the show.
"Here's what I know. If they were losing this kind of money, you're telling me losing this kind of money happened yesterday?" he questioned. "I'll bet they were losing this kind of money a month ago. I'll bet they were losing this kind of money six weeks ago. Or they have never been losing money."
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