Stephen Colbert Claps Back at Trump's Gloating About ‘Late Show' Cancellation: ‘Go F— Yourself'
In his monologue opening Monday's 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,' Colbert referred to Trump's celebrating CBS's sudden decision to axe the show. The U.S. president, in a post on Truth Social last Friday, wrote, 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.'
More from Variety
John Oliver Says 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' Cancellation Is 'Incredibly Sad': 'Terrible News for the World of Comedy'
Skydance CEO David Ellison Pledged to FCC He Would 'Ensure' CBS News Coverage Reflects 'Varied Ideological Perspectives'
'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' Has Never Won an Emmy - That Could Finally Change After CBS Canceled It
With mock outrage, Colbert said, 'How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?'
Colbert then appeared in an on-screen frame that said 'Eloquence Cam' and, staring directly into the camera, said in a clipped New York accent: 'Go fuck yourself.' (The f-bomb was bleeped out.) The line drew a massive roar of approval from the audience in the Ed Sullivan Theater, followed by cheers of 'Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!'
In the monologue, Colbert noted that Trump also said in his online post, 'I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next' to be fired. To which Colbert said, 'Nope, no, no. Absolutely not. Kimmel, I am the martyr. There's only room for one on this cross. And the view is fantastic from up here. I can see your house!'
'The Late Show' posted a preview of Colbert's June 21 monologue on Instagram ahead of the program's broadcast on CBS with the caption: 'Sticks and stones may break our bones but presidential turds can never hurt us.'
Prior to Monday's taping, a crowd of about 100 protestors gathered outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in midtown Manhattan shouting, 'Trump must go, Colbert must stay,' according to a post on X by James Martin, editor at large for America Magazine. That was in addition to several hundred more waiting to get in to see the show.
Colbert had announced the show's termination to the 'Late Show' audience during the taping on Thursday, July 17, and that video was shared online. Colbert said he had found out about the decision on Wednesday night. He expressed gratitude to fans, his staff and CBS execs (saying 'the folks at CBS have been great partners') but also regret that the network was exiting late night: '[I]t is a fantastic job. I wish somebody else was getting it.'
Colbert's guests Monday are scheduled to be actors Sandra Oh and Dave Franco. He returned after taking Friday off (when CBS aired a rerun of the June 24 episode with John Cena and Lorde).
CBS, in announcing the cancellation of 'The Late Show,' said it was 'purely a financial decision,' and the show's axing follows years-long slide in the economics of late-night TV. The next season will be the 11th and final season of Colbert's show on the network, ending its run in May 2026.
But the news also came two weeks after CBS parent Paramount Global said it will pay Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit alleging a '60 Minutes' interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited. On July 14, Colbert had said on his show that the settlement by CBS's parent company was 'a big, fat bribe,' alleging that Paramount made the payment because the company is seeking to secure the Trump administration's approval to merge with Skydance Media.
Critics of Trump including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, suggested that CBS's cancelation of Colbert's show were related to the Paramount settlement with the president. Warren has has previously characterized the Paramount/CBS settlement as 'bribery.' 'America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,' Warren said in a July 17 statement. On Friday, the Writers Guild of America called for the New York State attorney general to investigate the circumstances around 'The Late Show' cancellation, with the union saying it had 'significant concerns that The Late Show's cancelation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration as the company looks for merger approval.'
On Monday, Warren and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden sent a letter to Skydance CEO David Ellison, asking whether Skydance and Trump had a 'secret side deal' apart from the Paramount settlement. Trump has claimed the settlement is actually worth as much as $35 million when factoring in 'advertising.' In the letter, the senators also asked Ellison whether he 'or other Skydance executives' were 'involved in discussions about canceling 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.'' According to CBS, Skydance played no part in the decision to cancel the late-night show. (Skydance declined to comment.)
Colbert, in the July 17 video, told the audience, '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.'
After the audience reacted with cries of dismay and boos, Colbert continued: '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. And I do want to say, I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. I'm so grateful to the Tiffany Network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home.
'And of course, I'm grateful to you, the audience, who have joined us every night in here, out there, all around the world, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea,' Colbert said. 'I'm grateful to share the stage with this band, these artists over here every night. And I am extraordinarily, deeply grateful to the 200 people who work here. We get to do this show for each other every day, all day. And I've had the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing what we do every day with you in front of this camera for the last 10 years. And let me tell you, it is a fantastic job. I wish somebody else was getting it. And it's a job that I'm looking forward to doing with this usual gang of idiots for another 10 months. It's going to be fun.'
Best of Variety
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week
'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts?
Final Emmy Predictions: Talk Series and Scripted Variety - New Blood Looks to Tackle Late Night Staples
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'Total Mental Collapse': Trump Ripped After 'Insane' New Ramble In Europe
President Donald Trump spent part of his weekend in Scotland reviving his old grievances against wind power, even claiming at one point that it was 'killing' Americans. During a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump abruptly detoured from immigration to wind turbines. 'And the other thing I say to Europe: We will not allow a windmill to be built in the United States,' Trump said. 'They're killing us.' He added: 'They're killing the beauty of our scenery, our valleys, our beautiful plains ― and I'm not talking about airplanes. I'm talking about beautiful plains, beautiful areas in the United States, and you look up and you see windmills all over the place. It's a horrible thing. It's the most expensive form of energy. It's no good. They're made in China, almost all of them.' He complained that wind turbines 'rust and rot in eight years,' and then can't be 'buried' because they will harm the soil. 'The whole thing is a con job,' he said. 'It's very expensive. And in all fairness, Germany tried it and wind doesn't work.' Much of what the president said was wildly inaccurate: Germany gets more than a quarter of its energy from wind, turbines last about 30 years (not eight) according to the U.S Department of Energy, it's not the most expensive form of energy, and they're not 'almost all' made in China. Several users asked Grok, the AI tool within X, to fact-check Trump's claims on wind power. Here's a typical response: Trump, who has frequently attacked renewable energy, has a special hatred of wind power that likely began some two decades ago, when an offshore wind farm was proposed near the land that would become his golf resort in Scotland. He sued to block it, lost, and has complained about wind and other forms of renewable energy since. He mentioned that on Sunday as well. 'Today I'm playing the best course I think in the world, Turnberry ― even though I own it ― it's probably the best course in the world, right?' he said. 'And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills... I said, 'Isn't that a shame? What a shame.'' Trump has previously taken his anti-wind stance to absurd extremes, such as in 2019, when he falsely claimed wind turbines cause cancer. 'The wind, the wind, it sounds so wonderful,' he said last year. 'The wind, the wind, the wind is, the wind is bullshit, I'll tell you.' Trump's critics called him out for his latest out-of-the-blue tirade against wind energy:
Vogue
9 minutes ago
- Vogue
Ty Haney Is Ready to Give Outdoor Voices Another Go
It's likely to at least catch the attention of current and former fans of the brand; Haney's challenge now is to successfully introduce the OV aesthetic — heavily associated with millennials — to Gen Z women. To do so, she's updated her go-to-market strategy. Outdoor Voices was part of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) retail gold rush of the 2010s, flush with VC cash, which she says eventually diluted her business to the point where she lost control. Gone are the days where a brand's trajectory could be supercharged thanks to Facebook and Instagram arbitrage. Haney now has a new trick up her sleeve thanks to Try Your Best (or TYB), the community rewards platform she launched in 2022 during the Web3 boom, which raised $11 million last month from investors including Offline Ventures and Strobe Ventures. The concept behind TYB is that brands can build fan channels and reward subscribers with early launches, discounts and more, while using the community to gauge new ideas, get feedback and build brand loyalty. Haney's CBD brand Joggy was one of the first to launch on TYB, while other brands on the platform include Glossier, Rare Beauty and Poppi. Outdoor Voices will go live on TYB this week with the product launch, giving those that join early access on 4 August. 'Really, TYB was a direct reaction to what worked and what didn't at OV. It came from understanding the power of community,' she says. With all Outdoor Voices stores closed, the focus is on e-commerce, though Haney says they're in talks with some select retail partners. Some collaborations that will hit on new categories are in line for spring. The Sun Shirt. Photo: Outdoor Voices The Sugar Cardigan. Photo: Outdoor Voices It's clear speaking to Haney that she's back in her element. She says TYB, Joggy and Outdoor Voices are three pieces of the brand world she's building. She has big ambitions, saying that she wants Outdoor Voices to be the next Patagonia (a brand more reflective of her current time spent between her hometown of Boulder, CO, and San Francisco). When she left in 2020, Outdoor Voices was at around $90 million in annual sales; the plan is to hit a new revenue high in the next 12 to 18 months. But she says she's not thinking about growth targets so much as she is building something that lasts, and she says the partners that she has in place this time feel like ones she can trust, ones that she had time to vet and get to know before deciding to return. She's stepping back in as a part owner of the company she started, which was a non-negotiable. 'Ownership matters a lot to me,' Haney says. 'How we fund the company, what the expectations are. That matters.' What happened with her first run at Outdoor Voices feels present. While she initially says she's 'put a bow on those eight years, and I'm very kind and grateful to them', she later addresses how difficult the period was. 'I'm an optimistic person. I think I blocked out those years.' Haney is not the only female founder of her era that left her company in a blaze of allegations of mismanagement and workplace toxicity. Is it vindicating to return? 'From a founder perspective, challenges are par for the course,' she says. 'But I don't think that era where there were so many takedowns was good for women wanting to be founders. So at the end of the day, I couldn't be more excited for this to be a model to show what's possible, and I hope that there's a wake of new interest from young women, to see what's possible in the brand and business-building world.'
29 minutes ago
Hong Kong's CK Hutchison seeks Chinese investor to join Panama Ports deal
HONG KONG -- A Hong Kong conglomerate that's selling ports at the Panama Canal said Monday it may seek a Chinese investor to join a consortium of buyers, a move that could please Beijing but bring more U.S. scrutiny to the geopolitically fraught deal. CK Hutchison Holdings' initial plan to sell port assets in dozens of countries to a group that includes U.S. investment firm BlackRock Inc. pleased President Donald Trump, who has alleged that China interferes with the critical shipping lane's operations in Panama. However, they apparently angered Beijing and drew a review from Chinese anti-monopoly authorities. A Beijing-backed newspaper posted scathing commentaries about the deal, with one describing it as a betrayal of all Chinese. Beijing's offices overseeing Hong Kong affairs have reposted some of these commentaries, widely seen as an indication of Chinese leaders' stance. A Hutchison subsidiary has operated ports at both ends of the Panama Canal since 1997. After months of uncertainty brought by tensions between Washington and Beijing, Hutchison said in a statement that the exclusive negotiations period with the consortium has expired. However, it added 'the Group remains in discussions with members of the consortium with a view to inviting major strategic investor from the PRC to join as a significant member of the consortium,' referring to the People's Republic of China. It said they needed to change the membership of the consortium and the structure of the transaction for the deal to be able to pass reviews by 'all relevant authorities." The awkward position Hutchison found itself in for months highlights the challenges Hong Kong business elites face in navigating Beijing's expectations of national loyalty, especially when relations between China and the United States are strained. Hong Kong has overhauled its electoral system to ensure the city is run by 'patriots.' CK Hutchison is owned by the family of Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing. It announced March 4 that it would sell all its shares in Hutchison Port Holdings and in Hutchison Port Group Holdings to the consortium that also includes BlackRock subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment Limited, a subsidiary of the Mediterranean Shipping Company. In May, Hutchinson co-managing director, Dominic Lai told shareholders that Terminal Investment was the main investor. Its parent company is led by Italian shipping scion Diego Aponte, whose family reportedly has a longstanding relationship with Li's. The initial deal, valued at nearly $23 billion including $5 billion in debt, would have given the consortium control over 43 ports in 23 countries, including the ports of Balboa and Cristobal, located at either end of the canal. That agreement also required approval from Panama's government.
