U.S. President Donald Trump is calling for late-night host Stephen Colbert to be taken off the air immediately, referring to him as a “dead man walking.”
“Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success,” Trump wrote. “Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings.”
Trump said Colbert is “running on hatred and fumes.”
“A dead man walking! CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do,” Trump added to his midnight diatribe.
A screenshot of Donald Trump’s Truth Social post.
@realDonaldTrump / Truth Social
In a follow-up post, Trump asked: “Who has the worst Late Night host, CBS, ABC, or NBC??? They all have three things in common: High Salaries, No Talent, REALLY LOW RATINGS!”
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“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES,” Trump added.
A screenshot of Donald Trump’s Truth Social post.
@realDonaldTrump / Truth Social
Trump appeared to take aim at Colbert after CBS aired a rerun of his Dec. 8 episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert hours after broadcasting The Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump.
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This isn’t the first time Trump has taken aim at Colbert this year.
In July, the U.S. president celebrated CBS’s decision to cancelThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with the final episode set to air in May 2026.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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Colbert responded to Trump with some choice words during an opening monologue of his show.
“Over the weekend, it sunk in that they’re killing off our show but they made one mistake: they left me alive,” Colbert said, looking directly into the camera. “And now for the next 10 months, the gloves are off. I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now.”
Colbert said he doesn’t “care for” Trump, adding that he doesn’t think he has “the skill set to be president” and isn’t “a good fit.”
Colbert then read Trump’s post from Truth Social and said into the “Eloquence Cam”: “How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism? Go f— yourself.”
Stephen Colbert claps back at Trump: “Go f**k yourself”
Trump responded to Colbert and claimed that he had nothing to do with the cancellation of the show.
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In a post on Truth Social in late July, Trump said “everybody” thinks he was “solely responsible” for the end of the late-night talk show but he said the rumours are “not true!”
“Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, ‘Late Night,’” Trump wrote. “That is not true! The reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT, and the fact that this deficiency was costing CBS $50 Million Dollars a year in losses — And it was only going to get WORSE!”
White House anger over political satires/late night talk shows
Trump went on to claim that “an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel” will be “next up” to lose his job, followed by “a weak, and very insecure, Jimmy Fallon.”
“The only real question is, who will go first? Show Biz and Television is a very simple business. If you get Ratings, you can say or do anything. If you don’t, you always become a victim,” Trump wrote. “Colbert became a victim to himself, the other two will follow.”
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In August, Trump doubled down on his claims that late-night hosts Kimmel and Fallon were next to lose their jobs.
Mary Gallagher will tell you she’s “a comic, actor, and writer,” but that doesn’t really cover it. She’s a survivor of Midwestern discipline, a student of chaos, a quiet storm turned loud truth-teller. She’s also a working mother, an educator, a late-night TV comic, a Colbert alum, a voice in the room helping actors find their own voices. And she’s the kind of performer who can walk onstage and, without a script, build a moment that feels alive and electric — and entirely hers.
“I grew up introverted,” she says. “Not by choice. I was forced to be introverted.”
Mary was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in what she describes as a conservative household. Both of her parents are former Marines. Being funny, in that environment, was not really encouraged — at least not out loud. “I thought I was funny,” she says. “But I was not allowed to be funny. So I drew a lot of cartoons.”
It was her workaround. “My mom really liked the cartoons, so she’d let me be funny on paper, in the other room,” she says. She’d make her mother laugh with sketches and little visual jokes. It wasn’t necessarily about the creativity it was a bid for connection. “It’s such a standard story — trying to get a parent’s approval — but that’s exactly what it was. Trying to get my mom to pay attention.”
When Mary was just starting to come out of her shell when she left home for the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay and discovered theatre.
“I said, these people are really weird, I want in on this” So she became an actor but money was a problem. If you’re a college theater major, your days are in class and your nights are in rehearsal. There’s no time to work a normal job. So when she saw a listing for a singing telegram performer — good pay, in and out, fast — she went for it.
There’s one catch: “I don’t sing,” she says, deadpan.
But the owner never actually asked if she could.
So she invented her own version of the job.
Instead of singing, Mary built a whole character performance around whoever was being “telegraphed.” She’d call the buyer of the telegram and interview them for 45 minutes, gathering inside jokes, embarrassing habits, what their friends teased them about, what they secretly loved about them. Then she’d walk into a bar in character — sometimes as a cop, sometimes as Marilyn Monroe, sometimes a banana — and stage an ambush roast.
“I’d come in like, ‘Where’s James Thompson? I’ve got an arrest warrant for him,’” she says. “Then I’d handcuff him to the bar, take his beer, drink it, spit it out, and just take the stage.” She’d perform a custom, precision-targeted takedown of this guy in front of his friends and family. “Nobody cared that I wasn’t singing,” she says. “They were too busy laughing.”
That was her first taste of live comedy: high-risk, high-contact, immediate.
“I realized, ‘Oh, I’m really good at this.’”
From there she built a two-woman act in Green Bay. The duo did lip sync sets in gay bars — “way before TikTok,” she says — and started winning contests. That momentum led to a booking that sounds like a dare: opening for Sam Kinison in 1988. “Absolutely the wrong room for two young women,” she laughs. “But I learned. I just kept learning.”
After college, the move was obvious: Chicago.
Chicago meant Second City. Second City meant sketch and improv. Improv meant permission — permission to experiment, to say something insane and then justify it, to fail and survive it. It also meant meeting the first real creative lifeline of her career, a fellow performer and writer named Michael Markowitz.
Markowitz eventually moved to Los Angeles to write professionally (he would go on to co-write “Horrible Bosses” and work on the animated cult series “Duckman”). He called her and said, essentially: You need to get out here. You belong here.
So she did. Thirty-plus years ago, Mary Gallagher packed up and came to Los Angeles knowing one person.
From that one person, she met another. And another. “That’s how it works,” she says. “That’s how you build a life.”
She started booking. Commercials. TV. Voiceover. One of her earliest notable breaks was a guest role as “Tilly” on Friends. The way she even got in the room is perfectly Mary: she was dog-sitting the producer’s dog. “That’s not how I got the part,” she clarifies, “but it is how I got the audition.” She laughs. “I’ve always worked. I’ve always hustled.”
And she never stopped doing standup.
“I’ve carved out a life here,” she says. “Got married, got divorced, raised my daughter, kept performing. I stayed in it.”
Her daughter grew up in Burbank, in and around sets and comedy clubs. “Sometimes I couldn’t get childcare,” Mary says, “so she just came with me. She’d sit through auditions. Sometimes casting would ask, ‘Can we use your daughter to play your daughter in the commercial?’ And I’d say, ‘Sure, let’s put that toward college.’” Her daughter, now 20 and studying pre-law, grew up thinking it was normal to watch Jim Gaffigan’s ‘Hot Pockets’ bit on YouTube every night while eating an actual Hot Pocket because she had just met Jim Gaffigan. “That was just Tuesday in our house,” Mary says.
Burbank, for Mary, wasn’t just a ZIP code. It was stability. “I moved to Burbank for the schools,” she says. “I wanted my daughter here. I loved that you could live right next to the entertainment industry, but not in it. People think ‘beautiful downtown Burbank’ is just a joke from Carson. But to me, it feels like a village.” She pauses. “I feel really lucky to live here.”
In recent years, Mary’s work has taken a turn. She’s still a comic. She’s still an actor. She’s still writing and performing. But now she’s also teaching — and not just how to write a joke, but how to survive yourself.
She began running workshops through SAG-AFTRA’s continuing education program, initially pitched as “standup as wellness.” Actors would come in, she says, not necessarily to “become standups,” but to confront fear. To find voice. To turn their own story into material on their own terms.
“I love working with actors,” she says. “I love when standup and acting and the self all start to merge.” She’s helped people build five-minute sets, coached them through their first open mics, even prepped actors for film roles. Recently she worked for months with an actor playing a standup in an upcoming romantic comedy, taking him to mics, shaping his material, walking him through that particular terror. “He did great,” she says. “I asked if he’d ever do standup again. He said, ‘Oh God, no.’ I was like, ‘Perfect.’”
For her, comedy is no longer about polish. It’s about presence.
“I used to think standup was about crafting jokes and memorizing routines and being clever,” she says. “That’s completely changed. Now, it’s about being in the moment. Truly being in the moment. Letting go of control.”
She used to white-knuckle it. She’d write tight, she’d rehearse, she’d go up there and deliver. She climbed the traditional ladder: host → feature → headliner → late night. She landed a set on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She taped a Dry Bar Comedy special. She hit the career markers you’re “supposed” to hit.
But all along, she says, something was missing.
“I didn’t really know me in comedy,” she says. “I’d have these flashes where I felt totally free onstage, where I was just alive in the moment, and I’d think, ‘Wow, that felt amazing.’ And then I’d go, ‘Okay, forget that. Go back to the plan.’ Now I understand — no. That was everything.”
The shift, she says, is personal and it’s late. It came after marriage, after motherhood, after divorce, after burning herself out being the ‘good girl,’ the caretaker, the people-pleaser. “Once I woke up to that,” she says, “it was like: Oh. I’ve been editing myself my entire life.”
Today, what matters to her onstage is not whether a joke is ‘perfect.’ It’s whether it’s honest. Whether it’s alive. Whether she’s actually there.
“When I feel whole, I don’t care what anyone thinks,” she says. “And it makes everything so much more real and so much more electric.”
She laughs and corrects herself. “I used to think ‘not giving a shit’ meant being unprofessional — showing up late, making everyone wait, blowing off the job. That’s not what I mean. What I mean now is: I care about the work, I care about the people I’m working with — but I don’t care if you approve of me existing. That part, I’m done with.”
Mary is, in a word, opening.
She’s teaching. She’s studying. “For the last week I’ve just been binging Richard Pryor,” she says. “I’m calling people going, ‘Did you know this?’ And they’re like, ‘Yes, Mary. Welcome to 2025.’” She’s listening to Wayne Fetterman on standup history. She’s talking shop with Jay Leno and Jimmy Brogan. She’s asking questions.
It’s not nostalgia. It’s appetite.
“I’m absorbing everything,” she says. “I’m opening up to all of it.”
And even after three decades in Los Angeles, she still feels new here.
“Every day I wake up and I feel like I just got to L.A.,” she says. “Like I’m starting over. And I kind of love that.”
When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.”It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.”So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.””I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.”I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.Colbert couldn’t get the line outColbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.”I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”
CNN —
When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.
“It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”
Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.
“So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”
The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.”
“I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”
Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.
“I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”
Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.
ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.
Colbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.
Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.
“I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”
Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.
Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.
Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”
Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”
Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”
Jimmy Kimmel hosted fellow late-night frontman Stephen Colbert on his show Tuesday night, and during the interview, Colbert recalled how he found out “The Late Show” had been canceled and how he told his staff.
Colbert said the news was first delivered to him via a two and a half hour phone call with his manager, James Dixon, who had known for a week prior but didn’t want to tell Colbert while he was on vacation. Colbert then told his wife, who was adamant that he tell his staff as soon as possible.
“She said, ‘Are you going to tell the staff?’” Colbert recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe I will tell them after the summer break.’ She said, ‘You are going to tell them tomorrow.’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ She said, ‘I am coming to work with you tomorrow because I think you are telling your staff.’ I get up in the elevator. I had sweat through my shirt. I didn’t want to know anything my staff didn’t know.”
At first, Colbert only told his executive producers so that the rest of the staff wouldn’t be affected while taping. After the episode was shot, Colbert told his crew and the audience, “Nobody leave. We have one more act of the show.”
“My stage manager said, ‘We are done,’” Colbert said. “I said, ‘No, there is one more act of the show. Please don’t let the audience go.’ He said, ‘No, boss, we are done.’ I said, ‘I am aware of that. I am here to tell you there is one more act of the show.’”
Colbert said he was very nervous when going back on stage to deliver the news, made worse by the fact that there was no teleprompter. The late-night host recalls the audience snickering at first, thinking it was a joke. But when he finally said his piece, no one was laughing.
“I was so nervous about doing it,” Colbert explained. “There was nothing on the prompter. I fucked up twice. I had to restart, and the audience thought it was a bit. They started going, ‘You can do it. Come on Steve. You can do it.’ I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. I got to the sentence that told them what was happening, and they didn’t laugh. They didn’t laugh. That is it. That is how I did it.”
In July, CBS announced that “The Late Show” would be canceled after the next TV season, citing the move as a “financial decision.” Some speculated that the move was actually to appease the FCC and ensure a smooth merger between Paramount, CBS’s parent company, and Skydance Media.
Newsom told Colbert he is worried that efforts to manipulate election maps could threaten the fairness of future elections, including the 2028 presidential contest
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
California Gov. Gavin Newsom raised alarm Tuesday night over the integrity of future elections, telling Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, “I Fear We Will Not Have An Election in 2028.”
Newsom criticized President Donald Trump for attempting to “rig the midterm elections,” citing pressure on GOP-led states to redraw congressional districts ahead of 2026. These redistricting efforts are part of a broader strategy to help Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives, Newsom said.
I fear that we will not have an election in 2028 — I really mean that in the core of my soul — unless we wake up to what’s happening in this country. pic.twitter.com/BjPsmw2izX
Newsom signed legislation in August calling for a Nov. 4 special election that would allow Californians to temporarily give lawmakers authority over congressional maps for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 elections. The measure, called the Election Rigging Response Act, would override the state’s independent redistricting commission, and Newsom hopes it will help counter these risks.
“As the Democratic Party, we have a lot of work to do to make up for our failures in the past,” Newsom said. “We got crushed in this last election.”
This act has received criticism and opposition from many, including former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. California should never resort to gerrymandering tactics, Schwarzenegger said.
“I’m getting ready for the gerrymandering battle.” Schwarzenegger wrote on a post on X while wearing a shirt that read: “F*** the politicians, terminate gerrymandering.”
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However, many House speakers agree with Newsom.
“California will not be a bystander to Trump’s power grab,” Speaker Robert Rivas said. “We are acting to defend our state from his attacks by taking it directly to the voters. Californians believe in democracy and freedom, and we will not stand by while the House is hijacked by authoritarianism.”
Like watching Rome burn,” one news anchor said as Donald Trump’s attack on the media industry entered a new phase. The president has never done well with criticism, constantly going after news organizations and private companies and individuals perceived to be insufficiently supportive or ingratiating. “This is the environment that we’re all operating in, and we’ve known this for a while, where, whether it’s legitimate or not, you have the government as an actor trying to control and shape coverage through a combination of means, one of which is threats,” the news anchor said. But lately those threats feel less empty: The assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has given the administration further opportunity to use its power to influence the media industry and its output — “consequence culture,” as they are calling it. So far, companies have largely shown an unwillingness to fight back. Coincidentally or not, this timidity comes at a moment of intense consolidation in the business, as David Ellison, right after taking over Paramount, sets his sights on Warner Bros. Discovery, with help from father Larry, a recent Trump ally who is expected to be a major investor in the American-owned version of TikTok.
On Wednesday, September 17, FCC chairman Brendan Carr dangled the possibility of punishing ABC over remarks Jimmy Kimmel had made days before about Kirk’s assassination; the late-night host had suggested “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” It happened quickly from there: Nexstar, which owns numerous ABC affiliates throughout the country, said it would pull Kimmel’s show from the airwaves; within minutes, Sinclair, another owner of ABC affiliates, followed suit; then an ABC spokesperson told the press that new episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be “preempted indefinitely.” Trump and Carr took a victory lap, and the president seemed to suggest a similar fate for NBC late-night stars Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. On Thursday, Trump, who earlier in the week had sued the New York Times for $15 billion over articles questioning his success, issued another threat, musing that networks giving him negative coverage deserve to have their licenses revoked.
Inside the media and entertainment companies, the mood among those creating the content under attack is somber. “I haven’t seen a lot of comedy writers or hosts choosing to censor themselves after watching our colleagues get literally canceled. It’s more that we’re horrified and embarrassed by the cowardice of the networks and the choices they’re making,” said a writer for a late-night show. “The people who have the most money and power are the first to give up, and frankly that should be mortifying for them.” Said another late-night writer: “The broadcast networks are beholden to Trump’s FCC in a way cable channels aren’t, but that’s hardly reassuring.” (Cable channels, unlike broadcast, do not use public airwaves and therefore don’t require FCC licenses.)
The decision to pull Kimmel off the air came two months after CBS, following its settlement of a lawsuit with Trump, canceled Stephen Colbert’s show. The latter move at least appeared couched in financial reasons, some insiders I spoke to noted; The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was expensive to produce — more than $100 million a year — and reportedly ran tens of millions of dollars in the red. “We had no idea how much of it was business motivated,” a late-night staffer said of the Colbert decision. “But this is just cut and dry.” As one prominent talent executive put it: “The FCC commissioner threatened ABC and its station partners, and the station partners and ABC took an action based on that threat. It’s never been that clear before.”
Pulling Kimmel was a decision that came from the very top of Disney with CEO Bob Iger and head of television Dana Walden reportedly fielding concerns from advertisers and affiliates. Kimmel had planned to address Carr’s comments on air Wednesday night, but Walden and other senior executives feared that would further inflame the situation, especially as staff on Kimmel’s show had been doxed and received threatening emails, according to The Wall Street Journal. Nexstar, for its part, denied that its decision was influenced by Carr’s remarks or FCC pressure, but, notably, the conglomerate is in the midst of trying to get a $6.2 billion merger with Tegna approved by the agency. “No one is confused — this is all about Tegna and Sinclair’s regulatory approval,” said another talent executive. “It’s super-specific. But it has real impact if it’s not limited in scope.” Multiple executives across television and print publishing said the focus is on ensuring their staffers can continue doing the work. “This is just the latest, right? We are just keeping our heads down and doing reporting,” said one.
At all levels of the industry, the question hung in the air of whether this moment marks a turning point. On Thursday, Carr told CNBC, “We’re not done yet,” and suggested The View, another ABC program, could be subject to review. “Clients are scared for what it suggests is to come. If Kimmel can get fired for that, what might they get fired for?” said another prominent talent executive. Late-night writers are also in a precarious position. “Our show is not in a position to pretend nothing happened in the way that others might be able to,” said one. “If our format didn’t demand it, I think some people who work here would feel safer not putting a target on their backs by commenting on it — which is the point of political censorship.” This writer described feeling newly paranoid: “I haven’t liked or shared any political commentary on social media since Kirk’s killing last week. It all feels like evidence that could be used in bad faith for some future persecution.”
Many feel something fundamental is changing in the industry. “The consolidation happening in the media world is incredibly unhelpful to this. Everyone feels like there’s no safe space, no corporate parent that’s going to stand up for you or protect you,” said the news anchor. “I don’t know that anybody knows how it’s going to end, but I think everybody recognizes the danger that we’re all in.” The Ellisons loom large with reported plans to acquire the Free Press and possibly put founder Bari Weiss in a leadership role atop CBS News. A Warner Bros. Discovery deal would give the family control over CNN too. Some see media companies’ capitulation as yet another indication of their waning power — that in an effort to slow down their decline, they’ve accelerated it. “They’re continuing to remind the audience and the population of their growing irrelevance,” said one network executive. “Personally, I would be a lot more concerned if Jimmy Kimmel got canceled from YouTube.”
For now, there haven’t been explicit directives for journalists or late-night writers to pull punches. But the menacing environment is impossible to ignore. “It’s front of mind, and front of coverage, and you’re living it while also reporting on it,” said a veteran news editor at the New York Times. Still, the Times, in the face of Trump’s suit, finds itself in a better position than other organizations Trump has picked on. “We do not have millions of dollars of research grants from the federal government. We do not need to do business in front of the courts. We are one of the few institutions in America that he has no leverage over,” a Times reporter noted.
Times executives have come out forcefully in response to the lawsuit. Publisher A. G. Sulzberger called it “frivolous,” and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien described it as an authoritarian-like attempt to intimidate independent journalists. (A federal judge essentially agreed, calling the suit “improper and impermissible” as filed.) “The New York Times will not be cowed by this,” she said. “A.G. is the person who I feel like was kind of made for this moment and is increasingly alone in this industry,” said the veteran news editor. “In the past, we could, you know, join with the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, put out a statement about this. It does feel increasingly singular and not in a good way.”
Colbert knows a thing or two about being silenced by a network. Earlier this summer, Paramount abruptly announced that it was cancelling his Emmy-winning CBS late-night show, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, after Colbert’s contract expires in May. The decision came as Paramount, CBS’s parent company, was waiting for government approval for an $8 billion merger with media conglomerate SkyDance. At the time, Kimmel and the other late-night hosts rallied around Colbert, appearing together on his show and calling out CBS and Paramount for potentially kowtowing to President Donald Trump, who had made his ire for Colbert and his comedy well-known.
Now it was time for Colbert to return the favor. “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel,” said Colbert to open his monologue. “Yesterday, after threats from the FCC chair, ABC yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely. That is blatant censorship,” said Colbert. He then reminded the audience about Trump’s decision in his first week of his presidency to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. “Sure, seems harmless, but with an autocrat you cannot give an inch,” said Colbert, to loud cheers from the studio audience. “And if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive. And clearly they never read the children’s book, If You Give A Mouse a Kimmel.”
Colbert than addressed Kimmel directly, saying he stands with the comedian and his staff amid the suspension, before joking that the brouhaha surrounding Kimmel has overshadowed The Late Show’s recent Emmy win for outstanding talk series. “You couldn’t let me enjoy this for like one week? Come on,” said Colbert, who was holding his Emmy.
As Kimmel’s suspension suggests, many aspects of the future of late night could lie outside of production teams’ control. As for the creative side, Camillo says, it’s up to writers, producers, and other talent to move past the 2000s-era late-night template. “I think that the product needs a metamorphosis,” she says. For starters, creators and execs need to figure out how to produce late-night shows designed for streaming—a challenge that has so far confounded everyone who’s tried it, besides perhaps John Mulaney. Although many viewers might not consider the comedian’s Everybody’s Livea proper late-night show (it airs weekly and steadfastly ignores current events), Wilmore praised Mulaney for breaking the rules in the same way genre leaders like Letterman have in the past.
In addition to experiments like Mulaney’s, Wilmore expects to see more ideologically driven shows like The Daily Show and, yes, Gutfeld! (Greg Gutfeld, who has proclaimed himself the king of late night and is No. 1 in the 10 p.m. Eastern Time slot—more than an hour before any of his competitors hit the air—has made a point of laughing at Late Show’s demise, and also has been less than sympathetic about Kimmel’s suspension: “People come up to me and go, ‘If you’re a comedian and you’re on TV, you should be upset by this.’ I’m not really,” Gutfeld said on Thursday’s show.)
As Black notes, content creators are also already finding new, cheaper ways to independently produce late-night-esque content. “I don’t think that that’s the preferred future,” she says, pointing out that audience fragmentation only makes it harder for anyone to hold a civic conversation. “[But] I think that we will probably go to a model where it gets smaller and smaller.”
On the financial side, a few forces could actually work in late night’s favor. For one thing, the genre easily lends itself to product placement—a lever many shows already pull to offset costs. Busy Philipps, who revived her defunct E! show on QVC+, could be a particularly useful model. And as Black points out, traditional late night also gives studios a promotional vehicle that exists entirely within their control.
Conover has no doubt that platforms like YouTube will continue to grow as well—and that as they do, they’ll absorb more and more of the entertainment market. As that happens, he wants to make sure the industry continues to pay workers fairly. It took decades for the linear TV industry to construct its ad model, set rates, and unionize, Conover says. Now the same needs to happen on the streaming side.
As YouTube channels get bigger and bigger, their sales process has to get more sophisticated as well. That means convincing advertisers to pay higher rates and attracting bigger brands. Right now, Conover says, the biggest late-night-adjacent YouTubers mostly trade in ads from direct-to-consumer brands like Squarespace and MeUndies. “They’re dick pills,” he says. “It’s still that kind of advertiser. Coke is not yet advertising on these channels.” If the genre’s ever going to be as profitable on the internet as it was on television, that will need to change.
Josh Gondelman, an alum of Last Week Tonight and Desus & Mero, worries that big streamers might test new formats as a way to skirt union regulations. “When you hear something like Ted Sarandos saying, ‘Oh yeah, we can see bringing premium video podcasts onto Netflix’—are these going to be union jobs, like TV talk shows are?” he wonders. “Or are people going to cultivate this new economy where they perform some kind of category fraud to avoid paying the crews and the writers what they would otherwise have to pay?”
Conover also refuses to blame audiences, new technology, or the shows themselves for studio executives’ failures. “If 5 million people are watching a show every single night and you’re not making money off of it, that’s your fault,” he says. “It’s your problem.”
Last Week Tonight senior writer Daniel O’Brien got a big laugh onstage at Sunday’s Emmys when he accepted an award by saying he’s grateful to write late-night political satire “while it’s still a type of show that is allowed to exist.” Days later, ABC announced it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air “indefinitely.” Though ABC’s statement didn’t include a rationale, the decision was made just hours after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened any broadcasting companies that failed to “take action” against Kimmel in light of remarks he’d made about MAGA’s response to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr, a Donald Trump appointee, told right-wing journalist Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
In retrospect, O’Brien’s joke feels bleakly prophetic.
“I question the sanity of anyone who does not believe this is a five-alarm fire,” former Late Show and Last Week Tonight writer Greg Iwinski told VF Wednesday night. ABC’s decision came precisely two months after CBS unceremoniously canceledTheLate Show With Stephen Colbert, making that announcement while its parent company, Paramount, waited for Carr’s FCC to approve its merger with Skydance Media. But Iwinski sees one distinct difference between the two. “They created a lot of false pretense with Stephen about money,” he says. “They didn’t bother with the pretense this time.”
Late Show will finish its run in the spring, leaving CBS without any late-night programming for the first time in more than 30 years. Kimmel has not yet officially been fired—but if his show doesn’t return, ABC will lose both its late-night presence and, arguably, its signature star. It’s an ending that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago, during the peak of the “peak TV” era, when networks and streaming platforms were greenlighting competitors to Colbert and Kimmel left and right.
Back then, veterans Jay Leno, Jon Stewart,David Letterman, and Craig Ferguson all retired from their hosting gigs, leading Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Trevor Noah, James Corden, and Colbert to take over their existing programs. New hosts likeJohn Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Samantha Bee, Jordan Klepper, Hasan Minhaj, Busy Philipps, Lilly Singh, and Desus Nice and The Kid Mero launched series in subsequent years that sought to redefine what late night could look like.
A decade later, most of those new shows are gone. Tonight airs only four days per week; Late Night no longer has a house band. Millions of viewers still tune in to these shows, and through more channels than ever before, but most of them are watching on social media—where studios still can’t monetize audiences as well as they can on linear TV. Meanwhile, the political right has consolidated an immense amount of power, further threatening a genre that has spent the past decade critiquing conservatives.
“The Studio” made Emmy history Sunday night with its 12th trophy as the AppleTV+ movie-business romp became the winningest comedy series ever in a season.“Studio” co-creator Seth Rogen won for acting, directing and writing. Along with nine wins claimed at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, it broke a record set last year by “The Bear” with 11.“I could not wrap my head around this happening,” said Rogen after winning best comedy actor at the beginning of the CBS telecast. “I’ve never won anything in my life.”Rogen shared the directing Emmy with longtime collaborator and “Studio” co-creator Evan Goldberg, shared the writing Emmy with Goldberg and others. He’ll get his fourth if “The Studio” wins best comedy. The show rode blockbuster buzz into the Emmys for its breakout first season.Netflix’s acclaimed “Adolescence,” the story of a 13-year-old in Britain accused of a killing, won four Emmys in the limited series categories. Owen Cooper, who played the teen, became the youngest Emmy winner in more than 40 years with a win for best supporting actor.Cooper said in his acceptance that he was “nothing three years ago.”“It’s just so surreal,” Cooper said. “Honestly, when I started these drama classes a couple years back, I didn’t expect to be even in the United States, never mind here. So I think tonight proves that if you, if you listen and you focus and you step out your comfort zone, you can achieve anything in life.”Best supporting actress went to Erin Doherty, who played a therapist opposite Cooper in a riveting episode that like all four “Adolescence” episodes was filmed in a single shot.Cristin Milioti won best actress in a limited series for “The Penguin.” It was the first win of the night for the HBO series from the Batman universe after it won eight at the Creative Arts ceremony.Britt Lower and Tramell Tillman each won their first Emmy for “Severance,” the Apple TV+ Orwellian workplace satire that is considered the favorite for best drama. Lower won best actress in a drama and Tillman won best supporting actor in a drama.“My first acting coach was tough, y’all,” Tillman, wearing an all-white tuxedo, said from the stage. “But all great mothers are.”He looked out to his mother in the audience and told her, “You were there for me where no one else was, and no one else would show up.”His win had been widely expected but Lower’s was a surprise in a category where Kathy Bates was considered a heavy favorite, for “Matlock.”Jean Smart won best actress in a comedy for “Hacks” for the fourth time, at 73 extending her own record for the oldest woman ever to win the category.Every acting winner other than Smart was a first timer.A night of surprise winnersSmart’s castmate and constant scene partner Hannah Einbinder, who had also been nominated for all four seasons but unlike Smart had never won, took best supporting actress in a comedy.She said she had become committed to a bit where “it was cooler to lose.”“But this is cool too!” she shouted, then ended her speech by cursing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and saying “Free Palestine!”Katherine LaNasa won best supporting actress in a drama for the “The Pitt,” a surprise in a category where most expected one of the three nominees from “The White Lotus” to win.“I am so proud and honored,” LaNasa, looking emotional and shocked, said.In perhaps the biggest upset in a night full of them, Jeff Hiller won best supporting actor in a comedy for “Somebody Somewhere,” over Ike Barinholtz of “The Studio” and others.How the 2025 Emmys openedStephen Colbert was the first person to take the stage to present the award during the CBS telecast at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles despite the recent controversial cancellation of his show by the network. He was greeted by a rousing and lengthy standing ovation.“While I have your attention, is anyone hiring?” Colbert said.In an unusual show order, host Nate Bargatze delivered his opening monologue only after the first award was handed out.The show opened with a sketch where “Saturday Night Live” stars Mikey Day, Bowen Yang and James Austin Johnson joined Bargatze, who played television inventor Philo T. Farnsworth opining on what the future of TV will be like.Bargatze-as-Farnsworth mentions that there will be a Black Entertainment Television. When asked if there will be a network for white people, he replied, “Why, CBS of course.”
“The Studio” made Emmy history Sunday night with its 12th trophy, becoming the winningest comedy series ever in a season.
With victories for comedy acting, directing and writing Seth Rogen’s Apple TV+ movie-business romp eclipses the record of 11 set last year by “The Bear.”
“The Studio” came into the night with nine Emmys from last weekend’s Creative Arts ceremony, making it a virtual lock to break the record. And it could keep adding to its total before the evening’s done.
It was the third straight year the record was broken. Last year, “The Bear” – whose dramatic presence in the comedy category irked some competitors – broke its own record of 10 set the year before.
“I could not wrap my head around this happening,” said Rogen after his win for best comedy actor, the first award of the night. “I’ve never won anything in my life.”
Rogen shared the directing Emmy with his longtime collaborator and “Studio” co-creator Evan Goldberg, and he can still win two more before the night’s done.
Britt Lower and Tramell Tillman took trophies for “Severance.” Lower won best actress in a drama for “Severance” and Tillman won best supporting actor in a drama. It was the first career Emmy for each.
“My first acting coach was tough, y’all,” Tillman, wearing an all-white tuxedo, said from the stage. “But all great mothers are.”
He looked out to his mother in the audience and told her, “You were there for me where no one else was, and no one else would show up.”
His win had been widely expected but Lower’s was a surprise in a category where Kathy Bates was considered a heavy favorite, for “Matlock.”
A night of surprise winners
Jean Smart won best actress in a comedy for “Hacks” for the fourth time, at 73 extending her own record for the oldest woman ever to win the category.
Her castmate and constant scene partner Hannah Einbinder, who had also been nominated for all four seasons but unlike Smart had never won, took best supporting actress in a comedy.
She said she had become committed to a bit where “it was cooler to lose.”
“But this is cool too!” she shouted, then ended her speech by cursing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and saying “Free Palestine!”
Katherine LaNasa won best supporting actress in a drama for the “The Pitt,” a surprise in a category where most expected one of the three nominees from “The White Lotus” to win.
“I am so proud and honored,” LaNasa, looking emotional and shocked, said.
In perhaps the biggest upset in a night full of them, Jeff Hiller won best supporting actor in a comedy for “Somebody Somewhere,” over Ike Barinholtz of “The Studio” and others.
How the 2025 Emmys opened
Stephen Colbert was the first person to take the stage to present the award during the CBS telecast at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles despite the recent controversial cancellation of his show by the network. He was greeted by a rousing and lengthy standing ovation.
“While I have your attention, is anyone hiring?” Colbert said.
The show opened with a sketch where “Saturday Night Live” stars Mikey Day, Bowen Yang and James Austin Johnson joined Bargatze, who played television inventor Philo T. Farnsworth opining on what the future of TV will be like.
Bargatze-as-Farnsworth mentions that there will be a Black Entertainment Television. When asked if there will be a network for white people, he replied, “Why, CBS of course.”
Apple TV+ is poised to have a breakout Emmy year with the two most nominated shows, “Severance” and “The Studio,” which are the favorites to win the two biggest awards.
What to expect from the 2025 Emmy Awards
“The Studio,” with co-creator Rogen starring as the new head of a movie studio, came into the evening the top comedy nominee with 23 and blockbuster buzz for its breakout first season.
“Severance,” the Orwellian office drama about people who surgically split their psyches into workplace “innies” and home “outies,” was the top overall nominee with 27 nominations for its second season. It won six at the Creative Arts ceremony and now stands at eight.
Along with best drama — which would be a first for Apple — star Adam Scott could win his first Emmy, for best actor.
Its top competition for best drama could be “The Pitt,” HBO’s acclaimed drama about one shift in the life of an emergency room.
Its star Noah Wyle could be both the sentimental favorite and the actual favorite for best actor. He was nominated five times without a win for playing a young doctor on “ER” in the 1990s, and now could finally take his trophy for what is in many ways a reprise of the role.
Many perceived the end of the show as punishment of Colbert and placation of President Donald Trump after Colbert was harshly critical of a legal settlement between the president and Paramount, which needed administration approval for a sale to Skydance Media. Executives called the decision strictly financial.
How to watch and stream the Emmys and its red carpet
The Emmys are airing live on CBS at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific time.
Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers may stream the show live. Standard Paramount+ subscribers can stream it Monday through Sept. 21.
“We don’t target people by their identity. That’s absolutely wrong; nobody said that,” Bardem said. “We target film companies and institutions that are complicit and are whitewashing or justifying Israel’s genocide and its apartheid regime. That’s what we’re targeting—not to stand with those who oppress people.”
While talking with Variety on the red carpet, Bardem said that he was “hopeful” for a brighter future in these incredibly bleak times: “There have been so many deaths and children being murdered that the world is waking up.”
Not every political moment at the Emmys had to do with Israel and Palestine. After being introduced by This Is Us star Justin Hartley, the chairman of the Television Academy, Cris Abrego, shed light on the recent shuttering of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “At the end of this year, CPB will close its doors because Congress has voted to defund it,” Abrego said, to loud boos from the audience. Abrego went on to remind viewers of television’s ability to “bend that arc of history towards justice.”
“Neutrality is not enough. We must be voices for connection, inclusion, empathy,” he continued. “We know that culture doesn’t come from the top down; it rises from the bottom up. Culture belongs to the people. So if our industry is to thrive, we need to make room for more voices, not fewer.”
The political moment of the evening, however, belonged to Stephen Colbert. The host of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on CBS received a standing ovation as he presented the first award of the evening. A vocal critic of President Donald Trump, Colbert’s top-rated late-night show was shockingly canceled by CBS as the network’s parent company, Paramount, waited for the Federal Communications Commission to greenlight a multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance. “Is anyone hiring?” Colbert quipped before shouting out the 200 Late Show staff members who will be out of a job after his late-night series comes to an end in May.
Members of other late-night programs spread the love to Colbert, like the team from Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, who took home the award for outstanding writing for a variety series. Senior writer Daniel O’Brien opened his speech by saying, “We share this category with all writers of late-night political comedy—while that is still a type of show that’s allowed to exist.”
The love in the room for Colbert and his program was palpable even before The Late Show was announced as the winner of outstanding talk series. After that envelope was opened, Colbert received the loudest applause of the night as well as the biggest standing ovation of the evening. As Colbert made his way onto the stage, there were audible chants of “Stephen! Stephen!” filling the room.
There was reason to believe the reception would be even worse. After all, Trump was booed loudly the last time he attended the Open in 2015, when he was a still-largely dismissed candidate. Now a second-term president, Trump’s standing among Open-goers, not unlike the electorate, has improved in the intervening years.
Tennis’ final major of the year –– a magnet for New York’s power centers of business, media and entertainment –– is the type of A-list, culturally liberal gathering that Trump used to frequent. He was a regular at the Open for years, before he started wearing red baseball caps.
Now, with much of the celebrity and entertainment world still at odds with Trump, the tournament represents a bastion of Trump’s pre-MAGA era. (A Fox News headline over the weekend summed up the dynamic: “Left-leaning Hollywood elite flock to US Open with Trump set to attend men’s final.”) One recent poll found that, although sports fans generally lean right, tennis fans tilt liberal.
The scene at Arthur Ashe last Sunday suggested that Trump was entering the lion’s den. On that afternoon, fans showered the embattled late night host and Trump scourge Stephen Colbert with a rapturous ovation.
During changeovers at Ashe, luminaries seated in courtside boxes and luxury suites are shown on the video boards inside the stadium; unlike Trump, most are received warmly. Shonda Rimes, Jon Bon Jovi, Hugh Jackman and newly enshrined baseball hall of famer CC Sabathia each drew applause commensurate with their stature and public standing.
But there was something extra in the ovation for Colbert, who is in his final season as host of The Late Show after CBS announced in July that it will be canceling the program. The network insists the decision is purely a financial one, but to many –– including, presumably, fans at the US Open that day –– it seemed politically motivated, with Colbert serving as a sacrificial lamb in order to secure a merger between Skydance and Paramount, which have formed CBS’s new parent company. (The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger a week after CBS said it is pulling the plug on The Late Show.)
The acclaim for Colbert at the Open last week felt more like an expression of solidarity than simply an assertion of fandom. It was the ideological inverse to the hero’s welcome Trump received at a UFC event in New Jersey in 2024, two days after he was convicted of 34 felony counts.
UFC, of course, is a pillar of the ubermasculine culture that Trump has exploited to tremendous political effect. He has drawn from a similar well of support within the frat boy world of college football. Those sports –– favored by Trump-friendly personalities such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Dave Portnoy –– have become central components of the MAGA brand. The Open, on the other hand, represents a link to a time before Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, when he was more identified with The Apprentice than politics and still mostly embraced by the Hollywood set.
William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was the last commander in chief born a British subject and the first member of the Whig Party to win the White House. He delivered the longest inaugural address in history, nearly two hours, and had the shortest presidency, being the first sitting president to die in office, just 31 days into his term.
Oh, there is one more bit of trivia about the man who gave us the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison was the last politician to lose his first presidential election and then win the next one (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson managed that before him). Richard Nixon lost only to win way down the road. (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the only two to win, lose and then win again.)
Everyone else since Harrison’s era who lost on the first try and ran again in the next election lost again. Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and lost twice. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan each ran three times in a row and lost (Clay ran on three different party tickets). Voters, it seems, don’t like losers.
These are not encouraging results for Kamala Harris, who announced last week she will not be running for governor in California, sparking speculation that she wants another go at the White House.
But history isn’t what she should worry about. It’s the here and now. The Democratic Party is wildly unpopular. It’s net favorability ( 30 points) is nearly triple the GOP’s (11 points). The Democratic Party is more unpopular than any time in the last 35 years. When Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Democrats should be having the opposite effect, 63% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the party.
Why? Because Democrats are mad at their own party — both for losing to Trump and for failing to provide much of an obstacle to him now that he’s in office. As my Dispatch colleague Nick Cattogio puts it, “Even Democrats have learned to hate Democrats.”
It’s not all Harris’ fault. Indeed, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who encouraged him to run again.
Harris’ dilemma is that she symbolizes Democratic discontent with the party. That discontent isn’t monolithic. For progressives, the objection is that Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough. For the more centrist wing of the party, the problem is the Democrats are fighting for the wrong things, having lurched too far left on culture war and identity politics. Uniting both factions is visceral desire to win. That’s awkward for a politician best known for losing.
Almost the only reason Harris was positioned to be the nominee in 2024 was that she was a diversity pick. Biden was explicit that he would pick a woman and, later, an African American running mate. And the same dynamic made it impossible to sideline her when Biden withdrew.
Of course, most Democrats don’t see her race and gender as a problem, and in the abstract they shouldn’t. Indeed, every VP pick is a diversity pick, including the white guys. Running mates are chosen to appeal to some part of a coalition.
So Harris’ problem isn’t her race or sex; it’s her inability to appeal to voters in a way that expands the Democratic coalition. For Democrats to win, they need someone who can flip Trump voters. She didn’t lose because of low Democratic turnout, she lost because she’s uncompelling to a changing electorate.
Her gauzy, often gaseous, rhetoric made her sound like a dean of students at a small liberal arts college. With the exception of reproductive rights, her convictions sounded like they were crafted by focus groups, at a time when voters craved authenticity. Worse, Harris acquiesced to Biden’s insistence she not distance herself from him.
Such clubby deference to the establishment combined with boilerplate pandering to progressive constituencies — learned from years of San Francisco and California politics — makes her the perfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Her choice to appear on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” for her first interview since leaving office was telling. CBS recently announced it was terminating both Colbert and the show, insisting it was purely a business decision. But the reason for the broadcast network’s decision stemmed in part from the fact that Colbert narrow-casts his expensive show to a very small, very anti-Trump slice of the electorate.
“I don’t want to go back into the system. I think it’s broken,” Harrislamented to Colbert, decrying the “naïve” and “feckless” lack of “leadership” and the “capitulation” of those who “consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy.”
That’s all catnip to Colbert’s ideologically committed audience. But that’s not the audience Democrats need to win. And that’s why, if Democrats nominate her again, she’ll probably go down in history as an answer to a trivia question. And it won’t be “Who was the 48th president of the United States?”
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
The Democratic Party faces historic unpopularity, with a net favorability 30 points lower than Republicans, driven by widespread dissatisfaction among its own base over losses to Trump and perceived ineffectiveness in opposing his policies[1].
Kamala Harris’ political challenges stem from internal Democratic factions: progressives blame her for insufficient fight while centrists view her as emblematic of leftward shifts on cultural issues, both detractors united by a desire to win[1].
Harris’s VP selection was viewed as a diversity-driven symbolic gesture by Biden, limiting her ability to build broader appeal beyond traditional Democratic coalitions, as seen in her 2024 loss[1].
Her communication style is criticized as overly generic and focus-group-driven, lacking authenticity required to attract Trump voters, while her ties to Biden and reluctance to distance herself from his leadership are seen as electoral liabilities[1].
Historical precedents suggest candidates who lose once rarely regain viability in subsequent elections, with Harris’ potential 2028 bid viewed skeptically in light of this pattern[1].
Democratic messaging under Harris risks pandering to niche progressive audiences (e.g., her Colbert interview appeal) rather than expanding outreach to swing voters, exacerbating perceptions of elitism[1].
Different views on the topic
Harris remains a strong potential front-runner in the 2026 California governor’s race, with analysts noting her viability despite a crowded field and lingering questions about Biden’s health influencing her decision-making[1].
The Democratic Party is actively reassessing its strategy post-2024, focusing on reconnecting with working-class voters and addressing core issues like affordability and homelessness, suggesting a shift toward pragmatic problem-solving[1].
Harris’ announcement to forgo the governor’s race has been interpreted as positioning for a 2028 presidential bid, reflecting her ability to navigate political calculations with long-term ambition[2].
Internal criticisms, such as Antonio Villaraigosa’s demand for transparency on Biden’s health, reflect broader party debates about leadership accountability rather than a rejection of Harris’ Senate or VP legacy[1].
Other rising Democratic voices, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Tim Walz, embody alternatives to Harris’ messaging, indicating the party’s capacity to diversify leadership beyond established figures[2].
While Americans will choose between former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, they will also be choosing who takes 435 U.S. House and 34 U.S. Senate seats.
However, as the nation awaits the news of who wins the presidential election on Tuesday, November 5, regular TV programming could be impacted, and many popular shows will skip their weekly runtime completely.
Newsweek has compiled a full list of schedule changes you should expect for your favorite shows from Dancing With the Stars (DWTS) and FBI to late night TV.
Dancing With the Stars
Fans of DWTS will have to wait until Tuesday, November 12 to watch another episode because of Election Day.
During the show’s regularly scheduled time, ABC will instead be airing its election night coverage Election Night 2024: Your Voice/Your Vote. This will keep Americans updated with real-time updates on the Electoral College map and which candidate secures enough votes to become president.
FBI
FBI is also not airing as usual on Tuesday, November 5 because of Election Day coverage.
The show will be back on its regularly scheduled programming Tuesday, November 12, but for Election Day, viewers will instead be able to watch theCBS News: America Decides: Campaign ’24 Election Night program.
It often makes the most sense for TV networks to delay airing the next week’s episode as most Americans will be glued to election night coverage and would miss a new episode if it was scheduled as usual.
The Real Housewives of New York City
For those who rely on a dose of reality TV to get through any election season anxiety, there’s good news.
Bravo will continue to air The Real Housewives of New York City all throughout Election Night, from roughly 4 to 11 p.m., with a new episode airing at 9 p.m.
Married at First Sight
Fans of a different reality show, Lifetime’s Married at First Sight, have less than ideal scheduling news for the week of the election, however.
The show, which brings strangers together to marry upon their first meeting, is skipping a week, with episodes to return Tuesday, November 12.
1,000-lb Sisters
Another popular TLC reality show, 1,000-lb Sisters, will be pausing its programming this week as well.
So that means viewers will have to wait an extra week to catch up on what’s happening in the Slaton sisters’ lives.
The Voice
The Voice is also taking a break this week due to Election Night coverage. NBC will instead be keeping track of all breaking news updates related to the 2024 election.
Fans of the singing competition show will have to be patient, as the next episode resumes next week on Tuesday, November. 12.
Stickers sit on a table during in-person absentee voting on November 1 in Little Chute, Wisconsin. Election Day could impact your regularly scheduled TV programs. Stickers sit on a table during in-person absentee voting on November 1 in Little Chute, Wisconsin. Election Day could impact your regularly scheduled TV programs. Scott Olson/Getty Images
Is Jimmy Kimmel on This Week?
While Jimmy Kimmel Live! is a fixture on ABC, he will not be airing his late-night episode as usual.
This is due to ABC blocking off the time for election night coverage instead.
However, starting on Wednesday, November 6, Kimmel will be back on his usual schedule, with guests Jon Favreau, Jon Lovitz, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor as well as musical guest Alessia Cara.
Is Stephen Colbert on This Week?
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is also following suit and opting against airing a new episode on Election Night.
The next episode is scheduled for Wednesday, November 6 with guest George Stephanopoulos and a music performance by Lenny Kravitz.
Is Seth Meyers on This Week?
Late Night With Seth Meyers is likewise taking a break on Tuesday for NBC’s Election Night coverage.
However, fans don’t have to wait long because Meyers will be back with his regularly scheduled episodes beginning Wednesday.
Is Jimmy Fallon on This Week?
Taking a nod from the other late night TV hosts, Jimmy Fallon is delaying the next episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon due to Election Day coverage.
But the next episode airing on Wednesday will be action packed with guests Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie Perez and Bailey Zimmerman.
Other Election Coverage
While the final results of this year’s election may not be available for several days, Tuesday’s vote counts will help Americans learn who’s leading in key swing states as well as across America.
ABC News will begin its coverage at 8 a.m. Tuesday, while CNN starts its election show at 5 p.m. Monday.
Fox News will also air its election coverage beginning at 6 p.m. on Monday, while MSNBC starts airing its election show at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.
The last presidential election in 2020 took four days for officials to make a final call, mostly due to the prominence of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing.
For this year’s Election Day, most polling locations close around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.
Even supporters of the Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harrishave complained that the current vice president remains a mystery to broad swaths of the country. Though media outlets (including this one) have noted that coverage of Harris and her campaign attracts a greater readership than coverage of her opponent, Republican nominee and former presidentDonald Trump, those outlets have struggled to convince Harris to sit down for an interview. It’s a decision that’s concerned even the journalists who seem receptive to her message, and prompted observers such as media writer Jon Allsopto note that as of late September, Harris and running mate Tim Walz “had taken part in seven interviews or press conferences, compared with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance’s combined seventy-two.” Of those, Harris personally has participated in just three.
But all that changes this week, as Harris is launching into a set of sit-downs and interviews at the national level, presumably in an effort to—as Democratic strategist James Carvillerecently put it——win the news cycle. Here’s where to find an interview with Kamala Harris this week:
TBD: Call Her Daddy
Harris sat for an interview with influential podcast host Alex Cooper on Tuesday, for an episode slated to be released on an at-yet-undisclosed day this week. Quoting the Harris campaign, the Washington Postreports that the interview focused on “reproductive rights and ‘other critical issues important to women.’” Listeners can find the episode on Spotify when it’s released.
Monday: 60 Minutes
For decades, the venerable CBS newsmagazine has hosted an interview with both presidential candidates in the weeks leading up to the election, with Trump famously walking out on that conversation in 2020. Via statement, the show says, “This year, both the Harris and Trump campaigns agreed to sit down with 60 Minutes. Vice President Harris will speak with correspondent Bill Whitaker. After initially accepting 60 Minutes’ request for an interview with Scott Pelley, former President Trump’s campaign has decided not to participate. Pelley will address this Monday evening. Our election special will broadcast the Harris interview on Monday as planned.” According to the show, expect questions about “the economy, immigration, and the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel.” 60 Minutes will air on CBS on Monday, October 7 at 8 p.m. ET, and will be available for streaming via CBSNews.com, on the CBS News app, or Paramount+.
Kamala Harris appears on ABC’s “The View” on Friday, July 12, 2019.
Jenny Anderson/Getty Images
Tuesday: The View
Harris will travel to New York on October 8 for an in-person interview with the ABC roundtable talk show. Planned topics of discussion with hosts Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, Ana Navarro, Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin have not been released. ABC broadcasts The View on weekdays at 11 a.m. ET, 10 a.m. CT and PT., with episodes streaming at a later date on ABC.com and Hulu.
Tuesday: The Howard Stern Show
The iconic interviewer’s once-controversial style is far less shocking in these days of wildly popular batshit podcasters, but with an audience of listeners who followed him to incessant spam call network SiriusXM, he arguably still enjoys some pull. Stern’s show airs live on Sirius’s channel 100 from 7-11 a.m. ET, with clips and segments typically shared to its YouTube channel in the hours following the broadcast.
Tuesday: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Harris will cap off her busy Tuesday with an appearance on the late night talk show hosted by frequent Trump antagonistStephen Colbert. (Other guests for the episode have yet to be announced.) The October 8 episode will air from 11:35 p.m. to 12:37 ET on CBS and will be available to stream on Paramount+.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants Americans to know Canada has more to offer than just “maple syrup and mountains.”
During a Monday night appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Canadian political leader got laughs from the audience as he tried to set Canada apart from the U.S. and boast about what makes the northern nation successful on the world stage.
There were also several more sombre moments from Trudeau’s appearance, with the prime minister noting it’s a “tough time” for many Canadians. Part of the night’s conversation focused on far-right nationalism and growing political division among people in both Canada and the U.S.
Colbert said Trudeau’s main political opponent, Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre, has been called “the Trump of Canada.”
In response, Trudeau said Canada is not exempt from extremist rhetoric or xenophobia. He did not cite any specific examples.
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“We’re not some magical place of unicorns and rainbows all the time,” he said. “The things that we’ve managed to do, we’ve had to work really, really hard at.”
Trudeau mentioned universal health care, ongoing efforts against climate change and dental care for low-income Canadians as policies that “we have to fight for” continually.
“There’s a big argument right now about whether dental care even exists,” Trudeau said. “We’ve delivered it to 700,000 people across the country and my opponent is gaslighting us and saying, ‘Dental care doesn’t even exist yet.’”
Conservatives slam Trudeau’s ‘Late Night with Stephen Colbert’ remarks on lumber
Earlier this month, Conservative MP Stephen Ellis said the government has failed in the delivery of subsidized dental care and claimed most Canadians don’t qualify for coverage or must still pay out of pocket for services.
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The Canada Dental Care Plan is accepting applications from people over the age of 65, for children under the age of 18 and those who receive the Disability Tax Credit. Applicants need to be confirmed, and then will be enrolled with Sun Life which manages the means-tested plan, which is open to those whose adjusted family net income is less than $90,000 per year and who don’t have access to dental care programs through employer plans, private coverage, or student or pension benefits.
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Additional eligibility phases will roll out next year.
Trudeau’s appearance comes as he is set to face a vote on a non-confidence motion in the House of Commons, put forward by the Conservatives on Tuesday and coming to a vote on Wednesday. If the vote is lost, Canada could see a snap election, but the NDP and Bloc Quebecois have indicated they will support the Liberals in defeating the motion.
“It’s a really tough time for people in Canada right now,” Trudeau said. “People are hurting. People are having trouble paying for groceries, paying for rent, filling up the tank.”
“People are frustrated and the idea that maybe they want an election now is something that my opponents are trying to bank on because people are taking a lot out on me, for understandable reasons,” he said. “I’ve been here, and I’ve been steering us through all these things and people are sometimes looking at change.”
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The prime minister said he will “keep fighting” to support Canadians and added that “Canada’s the best country in the world.”
Trudeau described the country’s “beautiful” wilderness and scenery, but maintained “Canada is about the people.”
“It’s a range of people from every possible background who come together and — a little different from the melting pot in the United States where everyone gets to be American — we try to celebrate differences, and people keep their cultures and keep their languages.”
Trudeau tells Colbert: ‘Canada’s the best country in the world’
Colbert, while noting that Canada is America’s “closest ally,” asked Trudeau what the two nations fight about.
The prime minister said there are many “small issues that matter” between both countries, but claimed the U.S. pays too much in tariffs on softwood lumber.
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This summer, the U.S. announced a 14.54 per cent duty rate on Canadian softwood lumber imports — an increase from the former 8.05 per cent tariff.
Colbert half-joked that many Americans also cross the U.S.-Canada border to buy cheaper drugs outside of the country.
“We’re happy to try and help you out, but it would be a lot easier if you guys had universal health care,” Trudeau said, earning cheers from the in-studio audience.
In lighter moments from Trudeau’s Late Show appearance, he joked Canadians, despite the stereotype for always saying “sorry,” would not apologize for the nominal differences between bacon and back bacon (or as Americans call it, Canadian bacon).
Trudeau has been Canada’s prime minister since 2015. This week, he travelled to New York City ahead of the 79th United Nations General Assembly. This year marks the UN’s first-ever Summit of the Future, which gathers world leaders to discuss themes including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change and human rights.
Trudeau said attending the General Assembly makes him feel both more and less hopeful about the future.
“You have to be fundamentally hopeful in this job, and particularly in this time where challenges are monumental,” he said of politicians. “But if you don’t believe you can actually work with others and make a positive difference, then you’re not in the right line of work.”
Tower of Terror was changed to Mission: Break Out, Splash Mountain has been upgraded to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and now another Disney Parks attraction is being eyed for some historically accurate updates. Stephen Colbert has pitched some new dialogue to the Hall of Presidents at Disney World after an orange man will be color-clashing in his new uniform. “I used my mushroom penis to have underwhelming sex with a porn star and then committed a bunch of fraud to hide it,” shared Donald Trump’s newly imagined animatronic before teaching the kiddos what it means to be a felon. “I cannot buy a gun, and I cannot travel to Canada. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my community service.” Thankfully, Disney World has plenty of trash cans.
Stephen Colbert called out the media for treating Trump’s crimes like a regular political story that is part of the horse race coverage of the election.
Colbert said:
Those three are just today and tomorrow. He’s also facing the January 6th trial in Washington D.C., the classified documents case in Florida, Colorado trying to throw him off the ballot for insurrection, and his appeal of the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, in which a jury has already found that Trump committed sexual assault. And yet, people want to hire this maniac to be president.
In light of all of that, I’d like to make a brief public service announcement: This is [f-ed] up. I know we’ve become numb to it. And is not normal. No other candidate for the presidency has had to end himself in multiple courts. And I’d like to point out that in all seven of his cases, no one doubts that he did these things. We’re just sitting around patiently waiting to find out if the wheels of justice will grind fast enough for there to be any consequences.
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And the media is covering it like any other political story – it’s all horse race. But in this horse race, one of the horses is old, while the other one is old, has hoof-in-mouth disease, and keeps quoting horse Hitler!
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Stephen Colbert was right. One of the reasons why the election coverage is so frustrating is that the media continues to minimize or ignore Trump’s criminal trials as a part of the campaign. It is as if the press decided that the criminal trials are just another facet of an election.
When they are the opposite of normal. The United States has never had a former president plot a return to the White House while they are facing 91 criminal felony counts. None of this is normal and should not be covered as normal.
The press is doing a disserve to democracy and the nation. Trump’s alleged crimes are not business as usual, and the press needs to stop treating Trump like he is any other candidate.
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Stephen Colbert compared Biden and Trump and called Trump a malicious elderly rapist in a crushing description of the former president.
Colbert said:
Last Thursday, we finally got the report from the special counsel investigating Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents, Robert Hur. Hur’s investigation found insufficient evidence to charge the president with a crime. But the report did contain one bombshell. After a 15-month investigation, special counsel Hur has determined Joe Biden is old. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Turns out, he’s not just old.
Hur said the president could be described as “A sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with poor memory.” Kinda going off road in a report about classified documents. “Your honor, we the jury have reached a verdict. We find the defendant not guilty of murder. But he is ugly and his mother dresses him funny.”
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Now, here’s the thing. We fact-checked this last Thursday, and it turns out, Joe Biden is old. I said double-check today, and it turns out he’s older.
Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. Hur’s extracurricular description of the president reinforces a concern many voters already have about his advanced age. But we are where we are. Unless something drastic happens, it’s Biden versus Trump. Voters are just going to have to choose between a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory or a contemptible, malicious elderly rapist with a poor memory. I don’t know what to do.
No matter how old the two candidates are, the difference is in character. One candidate has been found legally liable for rape by a jury of his peers. This same candidate is also charged with 91 criminal felonies. He was also impeached twice when he was president and tried to overthrow the government after he lost an election.
The other candidate tries to help people and is well-known for his caring and empathy. He also mixes up names sometimes.
If you put aside their ages and look at the character of the candidates the choice isn’t difficult.
Stephen Colbert’s Trump joke highlighted just how easy the choice should be.
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We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
Stephen Colbert unpacked Trump’s claim of passing a brain injury test to reveal that things didn’t go as well as Trump thinks.
Colbert played a clip of Trump saying, “They give you six names in a row. I took a lot of heat on this. They give you six names in a row at the beginning. “Sir, I’m gonna give you six names.” Good. Look at them. A chair, a hat, a badge, a necklace, and a vote.”
The Late Show host responded, “Okay. There’s a lot to unpack there. First of all, those aren’t names. Those are things. Those aren’t names. He also said they give you six names. Chair, hat, badge, necklace, vote — that’s only five things! ‘Cognitive tests are like jazz. It’s about all the names you don’t remember. A-scooba-doo-da-whaaaale.’”
Video:
Trump has been expanding, twisting, turning, and warping the dementia test that he took for years to the point where it has become one of humanity’s great achievements that is right up there with the moon landing.
Trump can’t even get the number of items on the list correct when he is retelling the story about the cognitive test, so there should be serious doubt that he passed the test in the first place.
Donald Trump’s cognitive test was probably to be able to identify how many cans of Diet Coke were on the desk in front of him and a picture of Sean Hannity.
The fact that the former president can’t stop talking about a years-old dementia test suggests that he might need another dementia test.
A Special Message From PoliticusUSA
If you are in a position to donate purely to help us keep the doors open on PoliticusUSA during what is a critical election year, please do so here.
We have been honored to be able to put your interests first for 14 years as we only answer to our readers and we will not compromise on that fundamental, core PoliticusUSA value.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
