Bill Carter Claims Trump’s Influence in Colbert Show Cancellation

Bill Carter, a longtime reporter, has alleged that President Donald Trump played a direct role in ending Stephen Colbert’s show. Carter pointed to an AI-generated video on Trump’s official account showing Trump tossing Colbert into a dumpster, set to “Y.M.C.A.” by the Village People, as evidence of the president’s involvement.

Following the series finale of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on May 21, Carter criticized the move on MS Now’s “The Weekend.” He suggested that Trump’s response to the finale signified his personal involvement.

The government was pushing to get rid of this man because he was a critic. And, you know, that is so alien to our values that I think most Americans — even people who are kind of neutral about it, maybe not his strong supporters — know this is not something we do. We don’t do that. We don’t shut people up because they criticize us. And I think everybody who has a sense of that realizes this was a bad situation that we are going to have to deal with on an ongoing basis, Carter said.

Carter, the author of “The Late Shift,” which covers David Letterman and Jay Leno’s rivalry, mentioned that Trump’s ongoing feud with Colbert likely influenced the show’s termination. CBS announced the cancellation, citing financial issues, though Colbert dismissed this claim.

The show was reportedly a significant financial loss for CBS, with losses reaching $40 million annually. Despite this, Carter accused CBS of yielding to the Trump administration. He suggested that CBS’s move signaled a retreat from independent journalism.

“I think CBS, when they capitulated in the lawsuit that Trump filed against ‘60 Minutes,’ was sending a signal that they’re not going to be the independent journalism outfit that they should be. And not just giving up Colbert, but wiping out the time period, they basically said, we’re not even the same business anymore. We’re backing away. We’re giving up on this because maybe it would be too hard to hire somebody who wasn’t going to make jokes about the president,” Carter added.

Throughout his show’s tenure, Colbert often criticized Trump. The Media Research Center reported that Colbert made 3,639 jokes about Trump from January 3, 2023, until the show’s conclusion. CBS’s reason for canceling the show remains debated, with some commentators attributing it to political pressure.