Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert is already out of a job come next May with the imminent cancellation of “The Late Show” — but if he keeps delivering network-blasting monologues, he might push CBS News to cut him loose earlier than they planned.
Colbert took direct aim at the network over claims that his termination was purely a financial matter — rooted in the fact that his show had put up a net loss of $40 million — and argued that his ouster was proof that CBS was “morally bankrupt.”
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Colbert suggested that the network because it just paid out millions — to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over an edited interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “60 Minutes” — and then let him go for “financial reasons.”
“That means by bending the knee, they lost like $40 million this year!” Colbert declared. “They better watch out. They might get canceled … for purely financial reasons.”
The audience laughed and booed as he continued, “The present owners are denying that additional $20 million, which I hope is true, because could you imagine how angry people would be? Last year, Paramount laid off 2000 employees — then cut another several hundred just last month. Firing that many people and then handing over $36 million to a guy who’s putting your neighbors in alligator camps, all because of a lawsuit that your own lawyers said was completely without merit.”
“If that’s true, it would make CBS look morally bankrupt,” he insisted, adding, “Also bankrupt.”
Colbert warned several days earlier that the network’s one mistake was simple: “They left me alive.”
He said at the time that because he already knew his time was up in May, he no longer felt bound to censor his thoughts on the network that was letting him go or his opinions about President Trump — and he warned the audience that he did not intend to hold anything back in the months ahead.
With his tenure already shortened, however, the question remains just how many shots he will be allowed to take at the network that — for the time being, at least — gives him a platform.
