THUNDERDOME: Scott Jennings SHUTS DOWN Colbert Cancellation Mourning Session

Jorge Bonilla
July 18th, 2025 12:39 PM

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Last night’s episode of CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip featured a segment dedicated to liberal grieving over the cancellation of CBS’s Late Night with Stephen Colbert. Conservative stalwart Scott Jennings took the opportunity to remind everyone that there was a far more important story taking place.

Watch as Jennings reminded everyone that the upcoming House vote to rescind funding for PBS and NPR was the more important story:

SCOTT JENNINGS: Colbert -- Colbert will forever be known as the person who frittered away David Letterman's legacy, which is something. But I -- may I bring everyone together? I think you're both right. I think your conversation about the television model is correct. I think your points about the conservative, you know, anti-conservative -- Ben is correct. But I would just submit this is not even the most important media story of the day. They're voting right now on the House floor to defund PBS and NPR. And to me, late night shows going away versus what the Republicans are finally doing after all these years, it might actually be a more important story than all the people who are in mourning over Stephen Colbert which- who cares?

Jennings was right. A little over an hour later, the House would pass that historic rescission. Abby Phillip responded to Jennings with this weird lamentation of the rescission:

ABBY PHILLIP: Listen, I agree that defunding public television is a big story and it's way beyond politics because there are a lot of things on public television that have absolutely nothing to do with politics and that all gets destroyed and torn down, as well. So, you're right. But you know, everything being filtered through this sort of right -- righty, lefty frame, I think is really actually a sad statement on where we are as a country. Like kids watching Sesame Street really don't care about your politics. And they're going to get affected by some of this, too.

This wound was self-inflicted. The children for whom she pleads might not have been interested in Sesame Street’s politics but, more often than not, Sesame Street’s politics was interested in them. There were ample opportunities for PBS and NPR to course-correct over the past decades, and these propaganda outlets blew past every available offramp. So now they must deal with plying their propaganda in the private sector.

The dynamics of the segment itself were very interesting. Phillip echoed claims of the move being part of the Paramount-Skydance merger. CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honing lowkey agreeing but denouncing Congress for meddling in private industry. 

Touré took the stance that Colbert’s cancellation was part of a broader trend in linear TV. Conservative host Ben Ferguson’s argument was that Colbert sucked, and Scott Jennings bridged both before making the most important point in that segment: the PBS and NPR rescissions are, in fact, a far more important story than the cancellation of a liberal regime comic.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned segment, as aired on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip on Thursday, July 17th, 2025:

ABBY PHILLIP: Tonight, a serious announcement from a late night host, comedian Stephen Colbert.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT: Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May. And yeah, I share your feelings. It's not just the end of our show, but it's the end of The Late Show on CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The move, as you can hear, drew surprise and anger from his audience and from Democratic lawmakers, too, who are now demanding answers. In a statement, Senator Elizabeth Warren said the cancellation came just three days after the host slammed CBS's owner Paramount for its settlement with Trump and called it “a deal that looked like bribery”. But in their own statement, CBS called it “purely financial”, a “decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance content or other matters happening at Paramount.” Elie Honig is back with us at the table. I guess it's not surprising that people don't buy it to a degree, but really because of the history here with Trump and these media companies and their desire to not get on his bad side and also their history of paying him.

ELIE HONIG: So, two initial reactions to this. Number one, what on earth is Congress doing wasting their time on this?

BEN FERGUSON: Amen.

HONIG: CBS is a private industry. If they want to give AOC the show, God bless them. If they want to go Fox News, God bless them. They're private.

PHILLIP: Right.

HONIG: That's- First Amendment. Congress -- if Democrats -- if Elizabeth Warren, they go down this road, what an utter waste of --

(CROSSTALK) 

SCOTT JENNINGS: You don't know why they're mad about it? Who was even on the show tonight? Adam Schiff. These shows --

FERGUSON: It's Democrats.

JENNINGS: -- Colbert --

HONIG: Wait.

JENNINGS: -- and the rest of have become nothing but anti-Trump fever swamp (inaudible) with Dem guests every single --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Let me ask you but -- Elie, Elie, let me ask you --

HONIG: There's a legal --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: -- let me ask you a follow up question. Let me ask you a follow up question. Okay.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: The reason Elizabeth Warren is asking about this, I take your point, I think you're right about can they cancel a show? Absolutely. But she was asking previously about the reports of a settlement with Trump in order to approve their -- their merger.

HONIG: Yeah.

PHILLIP: And she has suggested that that was bribery, that they basically agreed publicly to pay a certain amount of money to his, you know, his presidential library and perhaps privately to, you know, dedicate advertising money to his causes. And she suggests that maybe that's bribery.

HONIG: So, this was the second point I was going to. If we look at that settlement, the 60 Minutes settlement, the most ridiculous defamation lawsuit, the most ridiculous settlement I can remember hearing of. I mean, you don't, first of all, even have a defamation claim if CBS edited an interview of someone you don't like -- Kamala Harris, his electoral opponent, to make her look better. You don't -- you don't even have a basis to walk in the front door of the courthouse for that. Rather than fight it, CBS caved and paid the $16 million. They, 1000 percent would have won that lawsuit if they fought it. Now, why and what the motivations were? Was there some sort of quid pro quo? Nobody knows at this point. So, so I stand by both of those things. Congress needs to find better things to do than worry about who's got Late Night. But it was a ridiculous settlement, too. 

TOURE: Much as I would love to join any Trump pile-on that anybody wants to make, I really think that this is financial. I really do believe CBS- the model of putting on a very expensive show at 11:30 P.M. where the host is making eight figures and there's a large team- the current model of television does not support that. And they are not making enough money over the long term to support having -- so, the next step -- and I am sure that Colbert knew this was coming when he made that statement. So, he made that statement because he knew this was coming. But the next step --

PHILLIP: Well, he said he found out the night before.

FERGUSON: Yeah.

TOURE: That's what he said. But you --

PHILLIP: Which -- and look. I --

TOURE: You can't pull the plug on --

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: -- gigantic --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: But that's, I think that's the thing. I don't know, right? Like, I don't know, but you don't know. And I don't know that he would have said I found out about this last night if he didn't find out about it last night.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: But the next step is Fallon and Kimmel. And I don't wish any of these people --

PHILLIP: Right.

TOURE: -- ill at all. I like all of them.

PHILLIP: There are these broad trends in music that are --

TOURE: These big shows, these late night shows --

PHILLIP: Yeah.

TOURE: -- are going --

(CROSSTALK)

BEN FERGUSON: Abby, there's one massive part of the conversation that's been completely omitted from this. And that is: when you do a show that attacks half of America every night and you don't have conservatives on, and by the way, you're not funny, but attacking half of America and your ratings suck, you might lose your show.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: There's a lot of -- there's a lot of reasons why the Colbert -- but there's a lot of reasons why the Colbert ratings are not working out that have nothing to do with the political divide you're talking about.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: No, but it's constant. He's having on Democrats to trash Trump. He is constantly trashing conservatives. He referred to Donald Trump as a Nazi lover in 2017. So -- so --

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: That does make half of the country happy.

FERGUSON: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: But you don't need to have the whole country watching your show.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: You only need half the country. That's a great show.

FERGUSON: But the problem is, he wasn't funny anymore.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Listen.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Here's the corollary to what you're saying, like the other side of it, is that, you know, there are shows that I will not name that spend half their time attacking liberals, or attack -- all their --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: all their time attacking liberals and -- and it doesn't have any impact on their ratings whatsoever. So, to Toure's point --

FERGUSON: He hates guys like us.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: So, to Toure's point, I don't necessarily think that's really on the ratings front. I don't really think that that's really what matters.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: The real problem is more like Netflix and the reasons why the democratization of the entire television landscape, there are so many more options for people to watch. That's going to cut into a late night --

FERGUSON: And that can be part of it, but let's go back to it. You have a guy that does a show that's funnier on cable that gets bigger ratings and they had warnings.

PHILLIP: That's extremely debatable.

FERGUSON: No, it's not. It's not debatable.

JENNINGS: He's number one.

FERGUSON: He's number one. He's number one.

PHILLIP: The funny part is what I'm talking about.

FERGUSON: Well, but you don't maybe like him because he actually, like, crashed with us.

PHILLIP: The reason I say it's debatable is because every human being in the United States of America has a right to decide what they find is funny. And if half of America likes Colbert and half of America likes Gutfeld, that's fine in the United States of America.

FERGUSON: I'm okay with that.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: That's okay. But my point is the reason why they got canceled is because he was no longer funny and he was attacking half the country.

TOURE: That's not what's going on at all. We watching --

FERGUSON: Then why is the show getting canceled?

TOURE: I just explained. We are witnessing the end of an American television institution. It doesn't make enough money.

FERGUSON: Another one is growing.

JENNINGS: Colbert -- Colbert will forever be known as the person who frittered away David Letterman's legacy, which is something. But I -- may I bring everyone together? I think you're both right. I think your conversation about the television model is correct. I think your points about the conservative, you know, anti-conservative -- Ben is correct. But I would just submit this is not even the most important media story of the day. They're voting right now on the House floor to defund PBS and NPR. And to me, late night shows going away versus what the Republicans are finally doing after all these years, it might actually be a more important story than all the people who are in mourning over Stephen Colbert which- who cares?

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Listen, I agree that defunding public television is a big story and it's way beyond politics because there are a lot of things on public television that have absolutely nothing to do with politics and that all gets destroyed and torn down, as well. So, you're right. But you know, everything being filtered through this sort of right -- righty, lefty frame, I think is really actually a sad statement on where we are as a country. Like kids watching Sesame Street really don't care about your politics. And they're going to get affected by some of this, too.

FERGUSON: I would say it's Letterman and Leno did a much better job of having on George Bush and then having on Bill Clinton. They actually did a better job.

TOURE: It was a different time then. It was a different time.

FERGUSON: But my -- it doesn't -- my point is if you stop doing it and there are people like me that just, don't even care. I don't even know when the show's on. That's how irrelevant it is because once he hate -- once it was so clear how much disdain he had for conservatives and it wasn't funny anymore, you're going to lose your show.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I mean, listen. I really don't.

(CROSSTALK)

TOURE: It has nothing to do with politics. I have explained this over and over.

PHILLIP: Yeah, I honestly, I'm with Toure on this one. I mean, I think you can, I think it's a little speculative -- the Elizabeth Warren of it all, but there's no question that the direction of linear television is going in a certain place. So, that is the -- by far, probably one of the bigger factors. Can I give you a quick last word?

ADRIENNE ELROD: Yeah, I was just going to say, I think we also can't ignore the fact all the politics or not politics aside that there is a big Skydance-Paramount potential merger in from the FCC right now. So, this does feel a little speculative that perhaps this has something to do with that after the 60 Minutes situation. But we'll see.

PHILLIP: All right. Well, hopefully we get a little bit more reporting on what's going on there. Elie Honig, great to have you here as always. Thank you very much.

 

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