Jake Tapper used a portion of Friday’s The Lead with Jake Tapper for ripping CBS and Paramount after they cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. While Jake Tapper has received criticism for authoring a recent book critical of President Joe Biden, he’s right to rip both CBS and Paramount.

The Lead with Jake Tapper segment started with a clip from Stephen Colbert’s very first episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on September 8, 2015:

“As many of you know, of course, Governor Bush was the governor of Florida for eight years, and you would think that that much exposure to oranges and crazy people would’ve prepared him for Donald Trump. Evidently not.”

What follows below is a transcript of Jake Tapper’s comments during The Lead with Jake Tapper segment.

Jake Tapper: That was Stephen Colbert’s very first late show on CBS in September 2015, and his very first late night Donald Trump joke.

The announcement from CBS last night that the popular show will end next May comes at a fraught time. Now, CBS is claiming that this was purely a “financial decision,” and it is true and indisputable that the economics of late night TV are difficult these days, as evidenced by NBC trimming The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to four days a week instead of five, NBC getting rid of the Late Night with Seth Meyers band, and CBS no longer having a Late Late Show anymore after Colbert.

But what are we to make of the timing of this announcement? Obviously, President Trump has made no secret of his hatred of being mocked, specifically the jokes that people like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel make at his expense in this era where corporations, such as Paramount, don’t just ignore a president complaining, don’t just dismiss any thin-skinned leader because we live in a country with a First Amendment right to mock the president. That would be one thing, but, no, Paramount is in a bend-the-knee phase. Paramount, which owns CBS.

Paramount is attempting to please President Trump as Paramount’s Shari Redstone waits for the Trump administration’s blessing for a lucrative merger with a company called Skydance, a merger previously hung up by a substantively very weak lawsuit from Trump against CBS per legal experts alleging there was something untoward about a rather rote edit that 60 Minutes did of a Kamala Harris interview last fall.

This resulted in the exits of CBS News President Wendy McMahon and 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens because Paramount was determined to settle with the president. And it’s that timing that CBS communications was no doubt attempting to head off in their announcement of the termination of the Colbert show, which is doing very well in ratings, by the way. CBS communications insisted rather defensively that this news, quote, is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount, unquote, other matters such as Paramount, agreeing to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle that trifling lawsuit and move on with this merger.

A video clip rolled of Colbert criticizing the settlement:

“Now, I believe that this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s big, fat bribe. Because this all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.”

Jake Tapper: That was Stephen Colbert just four days ago.

Now, the roadmap of what to do to please President Trump, it’s not complicated. It’s not like finding the lost city of Atlantis. Trump in September went on Truth Social and called Colbert, who often mocks President Trump. He called him a “complete and total loser,” and then suggested, “CBS should terminate his contract.”

Trump, after — before that Truth Social post, was reacting to comments Colbert had made on PBS, on PBS’s NewsHour, when asked if he would have Trump as a guest.

A clip rolled from PBS NewsHour from September 23, 2024:

COLBERT: I’ve had him before and he’s kind of boring, so, no.

Amna Nawaz: No?

COLBERT: Yes, no. I don’t like to have people on the show who I don’t think are going to be honest agents of their own ideas.

Jake Tapper: And here we are ten months later, Colbert has been canceled and PBS is losing its federal funding, interesting.

And in case you wondered how the president took the news about Colbert, he posted on Truth Social, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” He’s still not satisfied though. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.” That’s what President Trump said.

One former CBS executive told me of this news:

“The timing seems so obvious and keeping with Paramount’s quid pro quo theme. If it were just financial, why announce this now? Why not let RedBird announce it post-transaction and FCC blessing? Seems like a further tribute to me. Shameful.”

It is stunning what is being done by men and women who should know better, who do know better in boardrooms and on Capitol Hill, because the most powerful man in the world, a man who has achieved way beyond his wildest life streams, seems shockingly pervious to criticism.

Now, we may never know if CBS ending the Colbert show was part of some secret deal cut between Paramount and Trump, or if it was just a freebie Paramount threw in, or if it was entirely unrelated and actually because of financial reasons, but Paramount is happy to let Trump think it is in the name of pleasing him.

The fact that so much of corporate America is dedicated to fearing these presidential whims that could result in actual retribution should concern all of us because trends like this don’t stop with one president. They start with them. And the First Amendment protecting the free speech rights of comedians and journalists when they joke or cover powerful people, an amendment that our corporate masters will not fight for, that’s ultimately just words on parchment.

The Lead with Jake Tapper airs weekdays at 5-7 PM on CNN.

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