Trump Vs. Late Night: How 2025 Turned A Comedy Staple Into An Intense Political War

• President Donald Trump has been increasingly vocal about his displeasure with talk show hosts he finds critical, often directly suggesting programming changes.
• Pressure from Trump is believed to be one of the contributing factors behind the cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."
• Late Shows, a popular U.S. TV format for decades, faces pressure, even as viewership shifts from cable TV to streaming platforms.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday renewed his attacks on late-night talk shows and their hosts, extending a year marked by public confrontations between the president and major TV networks. The unusual trend has not only pressured media companies but has also put the future of late-night talk shows – a long-popular U.S. TV format – into question, even as audiences shift from cable television to streaming platforms.

Trump lashed out at “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, branding him a “dead man walking” and urging CBS to “put him to sleep” – and suggested that hosts on major networks, CBS, ABC, or NBC, are patently bad.  

Colbert Continues To Rankle POTUS

“Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings.”

In July, CBS (owned by Paramount) announced that "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" would end in May 2026. One of the most popular American talk shows, it first aired in 1993 and has been hosted by Colbert for the past decade. The show frequently featured political satire – often against Trump –, and while the president said he did not have an involvement in the decision, he certainly cheered it.

Trump’s Direct Attacks

Trump has also frequently targeted talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, and accused networks ABC (owned by The Walt Disney Co.) and NBC (owned by Comcast Corp.) of peddling “fake news” and serving as the mouthpieces of the Democratic Party. In fact, ABC briefly pulled Kimmel’s show in September over the anchor’s insensitive remarks related to the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk. 

On Tuesday, Trump wrote, “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!” Trump’s comments were likely in response to an episode of CBS’s The Late Show, where Colbert mocked the president’s primetime address from the White House.

Late Night Genre Faces Pressure

Many view the cancellation of Colbert’s show as the first death knell for the late-night genre, which for decades has drawn audiences by blending social commentary with humour and satire. The subsequent Kimmel episode underscored how political pressure – and Trump’s direct suggestions on programming – could become a growing headache for network management.

The shift comes as TV viewership faces decline, with audiences increasingly moving to YouTube and streaming platforms like Netflix. In May, streaming outpaced cable and broadcast total television usage for the first time, according to Nielsen. Streaming accounted for 44.8% of TV viewership—its largest share to date—while broadcast (20.1%) and cable (24.1%) together made up 44.2% of total TV viewing.

The trend has pressured stocks of media giants such as Disney and Comcast, prompting them to invest more in streaming units. 

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment has mainly been ‘bearish’ for DIS over the past month, while that for CMCSA has ranged widely. The sentiment for PSKY, which is aggressively pursuing a merger with Warner Bros Discovery, has dropped over the past month.

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