During his eight-year stint as host of CBS’s The Late Late Show, James Corden could be counted on to use the show to advance the electoral interests of the Democratic Party, a NewsBusters study has found.
MRC analysts found that from March 23, 2015, through April 27, 2023, Corden had on 26 partisan guests including 17 unique individuals, 100 percent of whom were Democrats or in some way affiliated with the Democratic Party. At CBS, Stephen Colbert is far more aggressive in booking Democrat politicians, but Corden has a "perfect record."
The most memorable of these softball sessions was Nancy Pelosi’s April 2020 appearance where Corden fell in love with her freezer full of expensive ice cream. It ended with him asking Pelosi about her opinions of individual Republicans, holding up their pictures. He ended with a picture of Darth Vader, and Pelosi quipped “Even the party has gone beyond Darth Vader.” Corden shot back: “Darth Vader? I thought it was Dick Cheney!”
The British transplant would also give solemn monologues trashing America for a lack of gun control, declaring the country to be "one of the most backward places in the world,” and on abortion, declaring Dobbs to be "the biggest rollback of human rights in modern U.S. history."
These and other Corden lowlights can be seen in the video below from NewsBusters media editor Bill D'Agostino.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg were Corden’s most frequent guests, each appearing on the CBS show three times. Last September, Corden said to Buttigieg: “Can I tell you something just from me personally who’s British, I would really, really love it if you were the president of the United States one day, I think it would absolutely I really would."
Pelosi, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, Cory Booker, and Chuck Schumer were the other guests who appeared multiple times.
Finally, guests with singular appearances included Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Katie Hill, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Val Demings, Muriel Bowser, Stacey Abrams, Barack Obama, and Anthony Fauci.
Most guests occurred later in Corden’s tenure, especially in 2020 and 2021. The election year of 2020 was the busiest year for political guests with ten. The complete breakdown by year is as follows:
2015: 0:0
2016: 0:0
2017: 2:0
2018: 2:0
2019: 3:0
2020: 10:0
2021: 7:0
2022: 2:0
2023: 0:0
CBS will not replace Corden and will cancel The Late Late Show after the April 27 show, bringing an end to the show that first debuted in 1995. It will be replaced with a reboot of the game show @midnight that aired on Comedy Central from 2013-2017.
Methodology: The Late Late Show with James Corden ran from March 23, 2015, through April 27, 2023.
A partisan guest was defined as a current or previously elected politician, White House staffer, cabinet secretary, any of their children who are known to be political in their own right, or anybody who used to work for one of the two major political parties. Only American guests were included. Publicly available information on upcoming guests was used for the upcoming final two shows on Wednesday and Thursday.
