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Something changed after Trump settlement: Colbert says CBS booting him for bad ratings ‘seems fishy’

April 29, 2026 | | Print Article

Outgoing late-night host Stephen Colbert still remains convinced that there’s something fishy about his low-rated show’s cancellation.

CBS announced in July that his show would end this May because of “financial” reasons attributable to advertising revenue, shifting viewing habits, and the show’s lack of sustainability.

But speaking with the New York Times, Colbert theorized that the financial problems at CBS were instead attributable to a lawsuit the network settled with President Donald Trump in early July.

“I do not dispute their rationale [for cancelling the show],” Colbert said. “I do make jokes about it. But I also completely understand why people would say, A, that doesn’t make sense to me, and B, that seems fishy to me.”

Why fishy? Because, according to him, CBS “did it [hurt their own finances] to themselves by bending the knee to the Trump administration over a $20 billion, settled for $16 million, completely frivolous lawsuit.”

Except the lawsuit wasn’t frivolous. It is an easily observable fact that CBS News fraudulently edited an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 to make her look good ahead of her election against then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

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“It’s possible that two things can be true,” Colbert continued. “Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming. They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore.”

“But less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed,” he added.

Two years prior to the show’s cancellation, Colbert didn’t spend every second on live air trashing the presidency because then-President Joe Biden, a rabid Democrat, was in office.

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That said, the late-night host intends to end things with CBS amicably.

“I have zero desire to have a contentious relationship with my network,” he told the Times. “I’ve really liked working with CBS. They’ve been great partners. And I’d like to end it that way.”

“Eleven years is a long time to work here. And almost 10 years before that, almost 21 years altogether, in late-night. I feel so much better to be ‘grateful for’ than to be ‘mad about,'” he added.

Continuing his remarks, Colbert took shots at the Trump administration at large, including the Federal Communications Commission, for allegedly trying to censor him.

“Authoritarians don’t like anybody who doesn’t give them undue dignity,” he said. “Comedians are anti-authoritarian by nature. And authoritarians are never going to like anybody to laugh at them.”

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“The number of newspeople who have said to me or Jon Stewart or any of the guys who do this, ‘God, I wish I could say what you say on air.’ And we can. I think that upsets them. I think it might be upsetting that we really do not live in their world of principalities and powers,” he added.

Yet the late-night host claimed not to be a partisan actor.

“I have a problem with Trump being a complete narcissist who is only working for his own interest and does not appear to care if the entire world burns. That’s not a partisan position,” he swore. “I have eyeballs and ears, and I think calling late-night partisan is just roughing the ref.”

“And we don’t even want to be refs, but they perceive us as refs. I reject the partisan description. Partisan means you’re never, ever going to make a joke about a Democrat, and that’s just not true. There’s just no comparison of how fertile the fields are,” he added.

Vivek Saxena
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