Colbert, Maddow Publicly Demand Paramount ‘Uncancel’ His Show: Maddow Calls Paramount Takeover of CBS News ‘An Embarrassment’

As Paramount is offering more than $100 billion in a hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, calls are emerging from Stephen Colbert and MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow for the Hollywood giant to “uncancel” CBS’s “The Late Show.”In July, Paramount announced it is canceling “The Late Show” in May 2026, a decision that it said was made “purely” due to financial reasons, though Democrats and liberal commentators suggested it was because of Mr. Colbert’s virulently anti-Trump commentary, as Skydance was awaiting approval from the Trump Administration of its deal to acquire Paramount. It was later reported that “The Late Show” was losing around $50 million a year. But times are changing. Disney recently announced it has re-signed anti-Trump comedian Jimmy Kimmel to remain on ABC through at least May 2027, after briefly suspending the comedian earlier this year due to his offensive comments about the MAGA movement. And despite the Ellison family’s pledge to President Trump to end liberal and anti-MAGA bias at CBS News, the Tiffany Network’s news operation under Ellison’s control has remained fiercely anti-Trump, especially “60 Minutes.” And now, with Paramount launching a hostile $108 billion takeover bid to acquire WBD, Mr. Colbert and Ms. Maddow are hoping his show could get a stay of execution. Ms. Maddow, speaking to the anti-Trump MS NOW personality Nicolle Wallace on Ms. Wallace’s podcast, said the Skydance takeover of Paramount has become an “embarrassment” for “everyone involved” in the wake of the cancellation of Mr. Colbert’s show and the hiring of “a right-wing blogger,” as Ms. Maddow put it, to be the editor-in-chief of CBS News (she was referring to the founder of The Free Press, Bari Weiss). Mr. Colbert weighed in Tuesday night on his show, “Just yesterday morning, my beloved parent company, Paramount, reportedly launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros., valued at $108 billion,” Mr. Colbert said Tuesday night. “Wow. I got to say, if my company’s got that kind of green, I’m sure they can afford to uncancel one of their best shows.”After pausing for applause, Mr. Colbert joked, “CBS, you heard the people, bring back The Equalizer. We need our Queen to return. Why do you think America has become so unequalized?”Mr. Colbert referenced reports that Paramount’s takeover bid was aided by funding from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.“When the dictator of Saudi Arabia gives you billions of dollars, I’m sure there’s no catch,” he said. “In a totally unrelated story, I’m looking forward to next season’s new CBS hit comedy, Young Mohammed bin Sheldon.”Ms. Maddow made her comments on Paramount’s “capitulation” to Mr. Trump during an appearance on Ms. Wallace’s “The Best People” podcast.“It was absolutely transparent what CBS and Paramount were doing with getting rid of Stephen Colbert. ‘Oh, it’s a financial decision.’ Right, because having the highest-rated late-night show in America for years is somehow financially unsustainable,” Ms. Maddow said. “They announced the cancellation of Colbert — everybody knows what it’s about.”She insisted that Skydance’s takeover of CBS News has been a “huge embarrassment to everybody involved in it.”“They should reverse the decision about Colbert. He’s still on the air now, he’s still got a few months on the horizon left before they plan on taking him off the air. They should change that,” Ms. Maddow said. Mr. Colbert has not been quiet about the decision to cancel his show or the acquisition by Skydance — which is owned by David Ellison, the son of the world’s second-richest man and a Trump supporter, Larry Ellison — of Paramount. The late-night host has praised executives at CBS repeatedly and said they have been great partners. However, he criticized Paramount’s decision to pay $16 million to settle President Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over its editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview.Three days before his show was canceled, Mr. Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe.” He joked, “As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.”The comments about bringing Mr. Colbert’s show back are unlikely to change the fate of “The Late Show,” especially as Paramount is hoping to acquire WBD, which would likely require approval from the Trump Administration.Mr. Trump expressed his disappointment with CBS News under Mr. Ellison’s management, despite promises from Skydance that the network would produce fair journalism.On Sunday, “60 Minutes,” which has continued to run anti-Trump segments since the Skydance takeover, aired an interview with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, formerly an ardent supporter of the president.During the interview, Ms. Greene spoke about her decision to break with Mr. Trump on the issue of releasing the Epstein files. She also said that the president’s criticism of her led to her receiving death threats.After the interview, Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, “My real problem with the show … wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!”While media insiders have predicted that Paramount would have an easier time winning approval of a deal to acquire WBD due to the Ellisons’s connection to the White House, Mr. Trump downplayed his connection to the Ellisons.When asked about the competition between Netflix and Paramount for WBD, Mr. Trump said he knows the “companies very well,” but added, “None of them are particularly great friends of mine.”Although the president’s apparent frustration has led to speculation that it could hurt Paramount’s WBD bid, a columnist for the New York Post, Charles Gasparino, posted on X on Wednesday morning that “reports of Trump Administration animus to the [Paramount] bid [are] way overblown.” He added that government officials are more concerned about Netflix dominating the streaming market. Paramount did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

Colbert, Maddow Publicly Demand Paramount ‘Uncancel’ His Show: Maddow Calls Paramount Takeover of CBS News ‘An Embarrassment’

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