CNN anchor Jake Tapper has warned of growing political censorship in the United States and flamed media bosses who he says are debasing themselves to please Donald Trump.
During a monologue on The Lead on Thursday, Tapper cited outgoing late-night host Stephen Colbert, who will soon find himself showless after daring to take on the Trump administration.
“Now, there’s no evidence that President Trump, who has long railed against Stephen Colbert and other late-night comedians who mock him, no evidence that he demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled,” Tapper said.
But, he asked, “Does there need to be a direct order?”
He then deconstructed the move in which Paramount, CBS’s “mothership,” decided to cancel Colbert’s show. “The people who ran Paramount, CBS’s mothership at the time that the cancellation was announced last July, Paramount at the time led by Shari Redstone, they were trying to get the Trump administration to approve a merger that would allow Shari Redstone and her team to sell the company to Skydance, and they would all make a lot of money,” he explained.
“It was in the midst of the CBS Paramount merger last summer when Redstone and her company decided, quite surprisingly, to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. They attributed the decision to economic reasons. They denied that it was political.”
He said that while “the economics of late-night television have been challenging,” the decision to ax The Late Show was still murky. “I also want you to consider this calendar. July 1st, 2025: It is announced that Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against CBS, alleging unfair editing by CBS of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes.
“July 14th: Colbert says this, ‘Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s ‘big fat bribe.’”
He notes that just three days later, on July 17, CBS announced that Colbert was canceled and one week after that, July 24, the Federal Communications Commission approves the $8 billion Paramount Skydance merger.
“Now we should note, in the midst of all that, on July 18th, Trump posted, quote, ‘I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.’ The Kimmel kerfuffle happened two months after that. Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump, and the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it.”
Tapper said that Trump “had been attacking Colbert years before the show was canceled” and in subsequent Truth Social posts, he “took credit” for the axing.
He queried whether political on-air warfare would become the new standard. “The question, would a Democratic president in the future want to use this precedent? What pressure could be put on Spotify, for instance, when it comes to Joe Rogan? What pressure could be put on Fox when it comes to Fox News Channel? What happens if a Democratic president one day wonders, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome podcaster?’”
Pivoting back to Colbert, he had a pointed message for America’s corporate media elite. “That meddlesome comedian has been rid. So who’s next? And how long will corporate America’s chieftains sully their reputations to please one man?”
Colbert’s final episode airs on May 21. Paramount Skydance has been contacted for comment.
