“You only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense you may be losing it,” spoke Stephen Colbert at the 77th Primetime Emmys after taking home the award for outstanding talk series, despite the show's cancellation.
Earlier this summer, CBS announced that it would be canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, marking the end of a decades-long, culturally significant run. While CBS explained the cancellation as a purely financial decision, the timing of the announcement left many wondering if Colbert’s political statements against the Trump administration were the main motive.
Three days before Colbert announced the show would be canceled in May 2026, the network aired a segment criticizing the $16 million settlement between Trump and Paramount Global (the parent company of CBS). The lawsuit has been ongoing since October of 2024, Trump alleging the network had deceitfully edited a 60 Minutes interview with his democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, in an attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party.
This isn’t the first time Colbert has publicly spoken out against Trump’s administration. Segments on the late show are often centered around American politics, using satire to engage with the news. Colbert has even been called one of Trump's most prominent and persistent late-night critics.
Followers of the show connected CBS’s defunding to the executive order passed by Trump in early May, which aimed to end federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and rescinded $9 billion in public media funding from previously allocated funds.
With Colbert’s show cancelled and Trump’s billion-dollar cuts to public broadcasting, what does this mean for the future of the media landscape? Or perhaps a better question to ask is, how far will the government’s censorship of public media go?
Politically-biased media continues to be a huge issue, only furthering political isolation. While the divide was clear in more mainstream news channels like Fox News and CNN, it has now stretched to late-night talk shows and social media. Trump’s order targeted to left-wing media can be called censorship of political views that oppose his administration.
Regardless of your political views, there is no doubt that Colbert has become a prominent figure in the fight over the realities of free speech and expression in America. The internet has called Colbert and his show a "sacrificial lamb,” a clear display of the speech the administration is trying to quiet. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I hear (ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel is next. He had even less talent than Colbert.”
Just yesterday, Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended by ABC immediately after a segment about conservative activist Charlie Kirk was aired. With Kimmel now in the same situation as Colbert, it's clear that left-wing media has a target on its back—one so big, the cut to public broadcasting is directly affecting some of the biggest shows in America.
Taking home an Emmy for a cancelled show is a monumental moment for Colbert, and it comes at a time when popular media is facing its first intensifying wave of censorship in the current political landscape. Other talk shows show support for Colbert and Kimmel, speaking out against the decision to cancel their shows, and fearing they may be next.
Colbert ended his winning speech with, “I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America.”