Alleged comedian Stephen Colbert once infamously claimed President Trump was Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s “cock holster.” CNN host Jake Tapper was acting in such a manner for Colbert during the Thursday edition of his show, The Lead. According to Tapper, who once claimed there was “no reason to doubt” information that came from Hamas, Trump used inferences and angry posts to get Colbert and his show canceled by CBS. While comparing Trump to a king who wanted his those who annoyed him assassinated, Tapper omitted just how much money Colbert was losing annually.
Tapper launched into one of his verbal editorials trying to suggest that Trump had orchestrated CBS’s firing of Colbert through social media posts and wishful thinking that the executives would get his message.
His evidence? The testimony from a convicted liar and a disgruntled former employee who later allegedly posted in Instagram that Trump should be killed, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen and disgraced former FBI Director James Comey (Click “expand”):
TAPPER: In our pop culture lead. Years ago, when longtime Trump fixer, Michael Cohen, was testifying before Congress, he was asked about the ways that Donald Trump, now President Trump, makes his desires known. It is seldom with direct instructions, Cohen said. It's more with suggestions, obvious hints.
(…)
COHEN: He doesn't give you questions, he doesn't give you orders. He speaks in a code. And I understand the code because I've been around him for a decade.
(…)
SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): This is the President speaking. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct?
JAMES COMEY: Correct.
[Transition]
RISCH: He did not order you to let it go.
COMEY: Again, those words are not in order. [Transition] It rings in my ear as kind of, ‘will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’
Tapper latched onto Comey’s quote, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Of course, it was to compare Colbert’s cancelation to a political assassination.
“Comey referring there to the folklore about King Henry II. In the 12th century, King Henry voiced frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who had excommunicated bishops who defied church law,” Tapper explained. “And shortly thereafter, assassins came and killed the archbishop.”
Now, the longwinded Tapper did admit there was “no evidence that [Trump] demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled,” but he doubled down on the conspiracy theory with his admittedly flimsy historical analogy. “Nor, as King Henry demonstrates, does there need to be direct order,” he chided.
'That meddlesome comedian has been rid. Who's next? And how long will corporate America's chieftains sully their reputations to please one leader?' @jaketapper reports on the timeline of Stephen Colbert's last show and President Trump's criticism of the host. pic.twitter.com/8A8nJdsKD5
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 14, 2026
Tapper might as well have been standing in front of a corkboard bulletin board while unwinding red twine as he went down of his timeline of events he suggested pointed to Trump getting Colbert fired and others suspended, some of the events being months apart (Click “expand”):
TAPPER: But I also want you to consider this calendar. July 1st, 2025, it is announced that Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against CBS alleging unfair editing by CBS of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. It's a lawsuit that few, if any respected legal experts thought had any merit. That's July 1st. July 14th, Colbert says this.
[Cuts to video]
COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe.
[Cuts back to live]
TAPPER: July 17th, three days later, CBS announces that Colbert was canceled. One week after that, July 24th, the Federal Communications Commission approves the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. Now, we should note in the midst of all that, on July 18th, Trump posted, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." The Kimmel kerfuffle happened two months after that.
“Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump,” Tapper argued. “And the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it.”
But Tapper never provided any evidence that CBS Paramount got what they wanted because Trump was pleased. Then again, facts weren’t really Tapper’s thing. It’s why a report on Tapper’s show was the reason CNN was successfully sued and found liable for malicious defamation last year.
With the apparent mindset that political history started with Trump announcing his first run for president, Tapper wondered: “The question, would a Democratic president in the future want to use this precedent? (…) What pressure could be put on Fox when it comes to Fox News Channel?”
Jake, do you mean like when President Obama was cracking down on Fox News and James Rosen? Or like when Obama had his IRS crackdown on Tea Party and other conservative organizations?
Buried within his ranting Tapper admitted “it is absolutely true that the economics of late night television have been challenging for quite some time due to a variety of factors including more streaming competition, declining advertising dollars, and on and on.” He even noted that, “Conan O'Brien's late night show is no more. Ditto, the CBS comedy show that used to run after Colbert.”
But again, he omitted the facts. He ignored how Colbert’s show was hemorrhaging money. According to reports, it cost $100 million to produce the show annually and he was only bringing in $60 million. That’s a $40 million loss. No network would stand for that.
If they were actually trying to please Trump, they would have fired him immediately and would not have given him a months-long off-ramp where he could have turned his show’s finances around.
Tapper was likely upset that he was losing access to one of the shows he could hawk his books on. Tapper had appeared on Colbert’s show three times in as many years.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CNN’s The Lead
May 14, 2026
5:34:06 p.m. EasternJAKE TAPPER: In our pop culture lead. Years ago, when longtime Trump fixer, Michael Cohen, was testifying before Congress, he was asked about the ways that Donald Trump, now President Trump, makes his desires known. It is seldom with direct instructions, Cohen said. It's more with suggestions, obvious hints.
[Cuts to video]
REP. JUSTIN AMASH (R-MI): You’ve suggested that the president sometimes communicates his wishes indirectly. For example, you said, "Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That's not how he operates." Can you explain how he does this?
MICHAEL COHEN: He doesn't give you questions, he doesn't give you orders. He speaks in a code. And I understand the code because I've been around him for a decade.
[Cuts back to live]
TAPPER: So that was 2019. It wasn't an original observation because two years earlier, former FBI Director James Comey had testified about how President Trump had expressed to him the hope that the FBI would drop a probe into his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. Again, not a direct instruction.
[Cuts to video]
SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID): This is the President speaking. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct?
JAMES COMEY: Correct.
[Transition]
RISCH: He did not order you to let it go.
COMEY: Again, those words are not in order. [Transition] It rings in my ear as kind of, ‘will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’
[Cuts back to live]
TAPPER: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Comey referring there to the folklore about King Henry II. In the 12th century, King Henry voiced frustration with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who had excommunicated bishops who defied church law, as depicted in the 1964 film, Beckett.
[Cuts to video]
ACTOR: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?
[Cuts back to live]
TAPPER: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” And shortly thereafter, assassins came and killed the archbishop. The phrase has come to represent what happens when leaders want immoral actions carried on their behalf. But they also want plausible deniability.
Now, there's no evidence that President Trump, who has long railed against Stephen Colbert and other late night comedians who mock him, no evidence that he demanded that Colbert be fired or his show canceled. The final episode of the Colbert show airs in one week, next Thursday, May 21st. Nor, as King Henry demonstrates, does there need to be direct order.
The people who ran Paramount, CBS's mothership at the time that the cancellation was announced last July, Paramount at the time led by Shari Redstone, they were trying to get the Trump administration to approve a merger that would allow Shari Redstone and her team to sell the company to Skydance and they would all make a lot of money.
I should note that since then, Skydance has taken over Paramount and the company right now is going through the regulatory process to take over CNN and its parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.
But in any case, it was in the midst of the CBS-Paramount merger last summer when Redstone and her company decided, quite surprisingly, to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. They attributed the decision to economic reasons. They denied that it was political.
Now, it is absolutely true that the economics of late night television have been challenging for quite some time due to a variety of factors including more streaming competition, declining advertising dollars, and on and on. Conan O'Brien's late night show is no more. Ditto, the CBS comedy show that used to run after Colbert.
But I also want you to consider this calendar. July 1st, 2025, it is announced that Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit against CBS alleging unfair editing by CBS of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. It's a lawsuit that few, if any respected legal experts thought had any merit. That's July 1st. July 14th, Colbert says this.
[Cuts to video]
STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's big fat bribe.
[Cuts back to live]
TAPPER: July 17th, three days later, CBS announces that Colbert was canceled. One week after that, July 24th, the Federal Communications Commission approves the $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. Now, we should note in the midst of all that, on July 18th, Trump posted, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next." The Kimmel kerfuffle happened two months after that.
Now, you can make of the timing what you will, but it is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump. And the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it.
Now, Trump never posted on Truth Social: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome comedian?’ But anyone trying to curry favor with Trump surely knew where key pressure points were.
He had been attacking Colbert years before the show was canceled, and in subsequent posts, he took credit for it. Like the social media post I'm showing you right now.
Now, you don't have to like Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel or anyone on that graphic to find this concerning. Because standards once eroded seldom return. We see that with the gerrymandering wars playing out.
The question, would a Democratic president in the future want to use this precedent? What pressure could be put on Spotify, for instance, when it comes to Joe Rogan? What pressure could be put on Fox when it comes to Fox News Channel? What happens if a Democratic president one day wonders, will no one rid me of this meddlesome podcaster?
T.S. Eliot wrote an acclaimed drama about King Henry II and Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. It's called Murder in the Cathedral. The first professional American production of it in 1936, I think, was at the Manhattan Theater at 53rd and Broadway. That theater is now known as the Ed Sullivan Theater. It's where Stephen Colbert's show takes place until next Thursday. That meddlesome comedian has been rid.
So who's next? And how long will corporate America's chieftains sully their reputations to please one man?
