Late show with Stephen Colbert at the show on Thursday, July 25th, 2019.
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Late-night TV host Stephen Colbert let out a full cry of Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night, calling President Donald Trump a “dictator.”
“This is blatant censorship,” Colbert said in a fiery opening monologue at the taping of his CBS show in New York City, referring to the suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” 1 day ago by ABC.
Disney The subsidiary yanks Kimmel’s show indefinitely after rage over recent on-air comments linking the murderer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to Trump’s Magazine movement.
“A dictator cannot give you inches,” Colbert told the audience on Thursday’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“Jimmy, I’m 100% standing with you and your staff,” Colbert said.
Colbert dedicated Thursday’s show to Free Speech and Kimmel’s team.
Trump praised Kimmel’s suspension and suggested on Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission may revoke the license of broadcast and television networks opposed to him.
FCC Chairman Brendan Kerr on Wednesday suggested that if Kimmel does not take action, ABC’s licenses will be in crisis.
Colbert on Thursday said Kerr’s “comments certainly look like a march order.”
His episode featured a segment from The Colbert Report, in which the host satirically portrays conservative critics, and an interview with CNN anchor Jak Tapper and New Yorker editor David Remnick.
Remnick discussed his time as a correspondent in Moscow during the final year of the Soviet Union and the early years of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power.
Remnick said one of the first things Putin did to consolidate Russian rule was to crack down on comedians.
Colbert seemed physically exhausted at the end of the taping.
In July, CBS announced that it would cancel the effective Colbert show next May.
The announcement comes shortly after Colbert blew up CBS for giving Trump what he called “a big fat bribe.” mentioned the network’s parent company, Paramountagrees to pay Trump’s future library $16 million to resolve his lawsuit over compilation of a “60-minute” interview with then-President Kamala Harris, who was opposed to him in the 2024 presidential election.
A week after the cancellation was announced, the FCC approved a $8 billion merger between Paramount Media and Skydance Media.
Thursday evening audience members later praised Colbert’s rebellious stance.
“He really said whatever you did, we’re not going to let you get away with this insanity,” John Carter, 61, told CNBC.
“We’d be surprised if he reached the end of his contract in May,” said Camille Carter, another garden state who lives in the audience.
“Steven puts himself on our behalf and raises the alarm,” said Soliasera Escadro, 45, from the Bronx. “It took a lot of courage to do what he did tonight, and he simply stated the fact that democracy depends on freedom of speech.”
“Our country is under a major threat to freedom of speech. This is a turning point for America and it’s a very scary time,” said Corey Dickinson, 63.
“But after watching this episode, my wife and I felt that we both felt like we were both looking at the history we were making. This might be Stephen Colbert’s final show on CBS.”
Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,” reportedly opened the taping of the show Thursday with a joke about Kimmel’s suspension.
“To be honest with you guys, I don’t know what’s going on. No one will,” Fallon said, according to people who attended the taping, who spoke to industry news site Latennighter.
“But I know Jimmy Kimmel and he’s a decent, funny, loving guy,” Fallon said according to the outlet. “And I hope he comes back.”
Earlier on Thursday, late-night legend David Letterman called Kimmel’s show halt “idiot” and said, “You’re so frightening that you can’t fire someone because you’re trying to suck into authoritarian criminal administration in your oval office.”
“The reason I feel bad about this is because I see where this is heading,” Letterman told Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic Festival in New York.
David Letterman will be taking part in the 2025 Atlantic Festival held at PAC NYC on September 18, 2025 in New York City.
Michael Rocksano | Getty Images
“It’s managed media,” said Letterman, who has held shows on CBS and NBC for over 30 years.
“That’s not good. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous,” he said.
Letterman compared the ABC move to CBS’s decision to cancel Colbert’s show.
“They looked after Colbert,” Letterman said.
“It was rude, it couldn’t be an excuse, the man deserves a great deal of credit, he has been inducted into the Hall of Fame nine times and is manipulated like that.
“We’ve not only removed him, we’ve removed the entire franchise.”
Letterman said he has been in touch with Kimmel since the suspension was announced.
“He was nice enough to text me this morning,” Letterman said. “And he’s sitting in the bed with nourishment. He’ll be fine.”
Another late-night host, John Stewart, was scheduled to hold an episode of “The Daily Show” on Thursday.
Stewart, as a rule, will hold only the Comedy Central Show on Mondays. His routine changes were seen as a sign that he would deal with Kimmel’s halt.
He will be interviewing Maria Russa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of the book.
Variety reported Thursday that it protested Kimmel’s suspension outside Disney headquarters in Burbank, California and New York.
In New York, protesters chanted “Kimmel will stay and Trump will have to go” and “ABC, we’ll raise the spine.”
On Wednesday night, Trump cried out about Kimmel’s suspension, referring to Colbert.
“We congratulate ABC on the courage to do what they ultimately had to do,” Trump wrote in the Truth Social Post. “Kimmel has zero talent and if that’s possible, he has a worse rating than Colbert.”
He suggested that NBC follow the example of ABC and cancel its own evening show, Fallon and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
“What we’re witnessing is the complete abuse of power,” former vice president Harris said in a tweet Thursday.
“This administration is attacking critics and using fear as a weapon to silence anyone who speaks,” she wrote.
“Media companies fall into these threats, from television networks to newspapers,” Harris wrote. “We cannot dare to remain silent or be content in the face of this head-on attack on freedom of speech.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCuniversal, which owns CNBC. Bersant will become CNBC’s new parent company with the Bersant spin-off planned by Comcast.
