For years, Democrats yawned as Republicans accused media outlets of squelching conservative voices, but now leftists are beating the free-speech drum with the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, accused CBS owner Paramount of “providing monetary and political favors to Donald Trump” with the company’s “bone-chilling” move last week to retire the late-night franchise in May 2026.
“I want to tell you why the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show matters so much,” Mr. Murphy said in a Saturday video post. “We are on the precipice of entering a censorship state in which Donald Trump is using the powers of the federal government in order to erase criticism from the airwaves.”
He and other Democrats cited the proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, which needs Federal Communications Commission approval, as well as Paramount’s decision to settle a “news distortion” lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump for $16 million.
Sen. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, asked whether the show was pulled for “political reasons,” while Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said the announcement came shortly after Mr. Colbert mocked the legal settlement as “a big, fat bribe.”
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” Ms. Warren wrote on X. “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
Other Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, bemoaned the decision to pull the plug.
“Stephen Colbert is the best in the business. He always told truth to power and pulled no punches. We need more of that, not less,” Mr. Walz wrote on X.
Democrats have plenty of reasons to mourn the show’s cancellation. Mr. Colbert may be the most anti-Trump figure on broadcast television, a comedian who toasted Mr. Trump’s 2020 election defeat on the air with champagne and regularly showcases top Democratic lawmakers.
That includes Ms. Warren, who has appeared on his show 16 times, and Sen. Bernard Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont, who has made 21 appearances, according to media critic Joe Concha.
“These are profoundly unfunny people, which ain’t a good combination if you’re looking for the escapism of late-night comedy, and I think that’s what they’ve lost here,” said Mr. Concha on the Fox News Channel. “Every night looks like the DNC convention.”
Mr. Sanders also linked the merger deal to the show’s cancellation, asking on X: “Do I think this is a coincidence? NO.”
CBS has insisted that the move was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Mr. Colbert’s fans countered that “The Late Show” had the best ratings of any late-night show on the three broadcast networks, which is true – but also akin to being the tallest building in Topeka.
Late-night comedy shows have suffered a ratings slide as viewers increasingly turn to social media and streaming services for entertainment. Two years ago, CBS canceled “The Late, Late Show” with James Corden after it reportedly became unprofitable.
Such shows are expensive to produce. “The Late Show” reportedly has a staff of about 200 and costs $100 million annually, including Mr. Colbert’s $15 million salary, while losing $40 million per year.
Mr. Colbert had also fallen behind the new king of late-night comedy: Fox News Channel’s Greg Gutfeld.
The “Gutfeld!” show airing at 10 p.m. Eastern time has dominated the 11:30 p.m. network competition, drawing an average of 3.29 million total viewers per night in the second quarter of 2025 versus 2.42 million for “The Late Show,” according to LateNighter.
Even so, the Writers Guild of America called for New York Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation into “potential wrongdoing at Paramount” related to “why this beloved program was canceled.”
Cryptocurrency investor Cameron Winklevoss, one of the Winklevoss twins who developed the Harvard social network that was a precursor to Facebook, also called for an investigation – but for different reasons.
“The real question is why did CBS continue to platform Colbert — a political propaganda mouthpiece for the Democratic Party — that cost the network $40 million per year? Political favors?” he asked on X. “At what point does this become an illegal contribution to the Democratic Party? That’s what should be investigated.”
Others argued that if the show were being canceled to appease Mr. Trump, the network wouldn’t have allowed it to remain on the air for another year.
This isn’t the first time an administration has been accused of seeking to censor its political foes. The Biden White House pressured Facebook, Amazon and others to snuff content that ran counter to the administration’s stance on COVID-19, according to the House Judiciary Committee report released in May 2024.
In 2022, Twitter banned the Babylon Bee, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, and TurningPoint USA CEO Charlie Kirk over their posts on Biden administration official Rachel Levine, leading billionaire Elon Musk to buy the platform and rename it X.
Mr. Colbert took over “The Late Show” franchise in 2015 after a 22-season run by its original host, David Letterman.
Those cheering the show’s demise included Mr. Trump.
“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.