The Long Farewell to Stephen Colbert Is Finally Over; Now We Can Laugh at the Grave Mourning of His Loss – RedState
Thursday evening finally saw the arrival of Stephen Colbert’s departure, an event that began to feel like the ever-distant horizon never being reached. Since the announcement last summer of the cancellation of “The Late Show” by CBS executives, it has been a long slog of guests paying tribute and of media commemorations. One would think this was Patrick Mahomes being drafted and sent off to war in Iran.
Brian Stelter, all this week, was especially moved by the demise of this show, as his frequent appearances across the shows on CNN and his social media timeline becoming a thread of Colbert obsession attest.
Some Colbert fans will probably move over to Kimmel’s late-night show. But competition has historically made these shows better and funnier, so it’s a bleak moment for the late-night TV landscape… pic.twitter.com/vyiSBpbNKn
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 22, 2026
One of the more cloying bits of coverage from Stelter was calling Colbert “ministerial in nature.” The guy who once flipped the middle finger to the camera and exclaimed “F**k You!” to the president — he’s just like a pastor! And as Tim Graham noted, that was not an isolated case of him being a profane “minister” of comedy.
I’m boggled by the idea that Colbert was “ministerial” when he called Trump a “prick-tator” and a “cock holster” for Putin.
A minister would feel an ounce of shame over the kind of vicious stuff Colbert says. https://t.co/ChTCKx3xZk
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 21, 2026
Many others this week have been flooding the headlines with this cancellation, and it has been a miasma of misinformation. As the show closes, the ongoing conceit has been that Colbert has been forced off the airwaves by President Trump. This, despite the reason given by multiple news outlets showing that this was a business decision by the network. First reported by Puck News, the program’s fiscal losses of between $40-50 million a year for CBS were also stated as a cause by the New York Post, and confirmed by the Wall Street Journal.
But let’s not allow data and spreadsheets to interrupt a political narrative! Trump cannot tolerate being insulted, and so he was forcing Colbert off the air as a form of retribution. As alleged noted historian Jon Meacham said, “Always worry when they come for the comedians.”
VIDEO – Jon Meacham on Colbert: ‘Always Worry When They Come for Comedians’ @StephenAtHome @jmeacham https://t.co/luWqSRG2Ej
— Grabien (@GrabienMedia) May 22, 2026
One has to wonder about the collected works of a man who is an expert in peering back centuries to glean the facts, but is seemingly unaware of what has been in play over just the past few years. The people who have been consistently attacking comedy are those woke social scolds on the Left, Jon. Much like the need to overlook the financials, Meacham needs us to forget who it has been telling us which topics and groups are forbidden from becoming punchlines.
What is glaring about all of this insistent “attack” talk regarding the dismissal of a late-night host is the way none of the claims hold up to the barest scrutiny. Much like importing corrective facts to disprove a joke makes things far less humorous, looking into the details of this cancellation disrupts the outrage narratives. The amusement is in how so many media analysts do not want to perform actual analysis; accusations eclipse accuracy.
To start, if President Trump is so thin-skinned, why did it take him a decade to “remove” Colbert? The host was never a fan of the man, yet suddenly some benign gags told last year simply tore it for the president? It was a case of insistence made to deflect from the obvious. It can’t be that “The Late Show” was an opulent affair with a bloated, money-sucking staff; no, political enforcement was the cause of the comedy cotillion being scrapped.
The censorship script was persistent, yet never established, but here is the bigger reveal: CBS was not removing Colbert, it is cancelling the entire program. If Colbert and his caustic commentary were the actual issue, why not replace him with a more benign host? Instead, they are eliminating the show outright. It is not a case of what was being said, but what it cost for people to hear it.
The money side of the decision is also revealed by the steps taken for his timeslot. Comedian and entertainment mogul Byron Allen has been tabbed to take over the schedule with “Comics Unleashed,” said to be “a low-cost, politics-free comedy show.” What we see is that CBS is not looking to replace “The Late Show” with similar programming. They are trying a new format entirely, moving away from the late-night blueprint, and doing so for…wait for it…financial reasons.
This has been the trend from CBS for a while now. Three years ago, the network brought an end to the follow-up slot to Colbert, “The Late Late Show,” previously hosted by James Corden. It was replaced with “After Midnight” (produced by Colbert), a shift in the standard programming, and done with an eye on lower production costs. That show lasted only two years before being cancelled for low ratings and negative revenues — and not replaced. Now that same fate meets “The Late Show.”
But what fate meets Colbert? For all of the talk of his popularity, the vital service he provided as the political retaining wall to President Trump, and (as Jon Meacham exaggeratedly claims) “Stephen is an architect of the culture” (please…), why do we not see this man landing elsewhere to continue his needed service?
It seems telling that we are not hearing of Colbert moving to cable, where he would be free from the constraints of the FCC. What about the streaming services, where the comedian would be entirely unshackled and could let loose with all manner of his political opposition? It would be fair to think, with the effusive coverage in the media and all of the celebrity support he enjoys, that a new show by the multi-Emmy Award-winning host would be irresistible to a hungry platform.
Or, dare we suggest, all of the media hype from the past few months has been shameless wishcasting on behalf of their favorite windmill-tilting anti-Trump voice in the night. Now these desperate souls have Jimmy Kimmel’s lap to rest their heads upon. Good luck having him become your comedic “knight in shining ardor.”
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