Study

Late Night Comedy Shows Begin 2025 With 99% Of Guests Being Left-Wing

July 1st, 2025 10:10 AM

For the men of the late night comedy talk shows, the first half of 2025 was an instance of history repeating itself. According to a NewsBusters study, 99 percent of their political guests were on the left, matching the result for the last six months of 2024.

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Burr Goes On Anti-Musk Rant: 'They're Horrible Heartless People'

March 19th, 2025 9:45 AM

Comedian Bill Burr stopped by NBC on Tuesday to sit down with The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon and go on a rant against billionaires who have supported President Trump, but mostly Elon Musk, calling them “horrible, heartless people.”

Study

Trump 2025 Vs Biden 2021: Comedy Shows Focus On Trump 9 Times As Often

February 19th, 2025 10:15 AM

Through the first four weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term, the late night comedians have told 761 jokes about him. By contrast, in 2021, during President Joe Biden’s first four weeks in office, the late night comedians told a total of 88 jokes about the new chief executive, according to an MRC study.

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'Our Long National Nightmare': Comedians Freak Out At Trump's Return

January 21st, 2025 11:53 AM

When the late night comedy shows took to the air on Monday to lament Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, three main themes emerged. The first was that Trump is going to be a national nightmare. The second was that they have gone all in on embracing former President Joe Biden’s “oligarchy” warnings. Finally, it was deemed ironic that Inauguration Day happened to fall on Martin Luther King…

Study

In the Last 6 Months, 99% of Late Night Comedy Guests Were Liberals

January 8th, 2025 3:00 PM

From the beginning of June through the end of December, the late night comedy shows welcomed 120 liberal guests and only one conservative, according to a new NewsBusters study.

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Lydic, Fallon Attack Zuckerberg For Abandoning Fact-Checkers

January 8th, 2025 1:15 PM

The Daily Show’s host-of-the-week Desi Lydic and The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon used their respective shows on Comedy Central and NBC on Wednesday to attack Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his decision to ditch the company’s relationship with fact-checking companies. As Lydic and Fallon tell it, if someone calls themselves a fact-checker, they must be an unbiased observer of…

Study

STUDY: 82 Percent Of Late Night Jokes Targeted Conservatives In 2024

January 7th, 2025 12:35 PM

After a strike-shortened 2023, 2024 was a busy year for the late night comedians. During the last year, the men of late night told a total of 13,676 political jokes, of which 11,226, or 82 percent, were directed at someone or something on the right side of the political aisle, an MRC study has found.

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How Late-Night Comics Covered Up Biden’s Decline

January 4th, 2025 1:30 PM

Now, it can be told. President Joe Biden wasn’t capable of discharging his duties as Commander in Chief for large swathes of his single-term presidency. New reporting from The Wall Street Journal shared some, but not all, of the shocking details.

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'F*** The Norms' Vs. 'Crimes': Comedians Struggle With Hunter Pardon

December 3rd, 2024 10:15 AM

The men of late night comedy struggled on their Monday shows to reconcile their support for President Joe Biden and his decision to pardon his son, Hunter. Some hosts decided to make the story about Republicans, while others made more “Biden is old” quips, while others welcomed the news, but hoped Democrats would apply the logic behind it to ordinary people too.

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'What The Actual F***, America?' Comedy Shows Struggle With Trump Win

November 7th, 2024 12:00 PM

The six late night comedy shows vacillated between liberal pep talks, sadness, and anger on Wednesday as most of them reacted to Donald Trump’s presidential election victory. From asking “What the actual [bleep], America?” to mourning the demise of democracy, here is a Notable Quotables-style compliation of Wednesday’s tapings of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel…

Study

No Laughing Matter: 98% of ‘Comedy’ Show Campaign Jokes Target Trump

October 30th, 2024 9:20 AM

During the fall presidential campaign, a Media Research Center study found that hosts of the late-night "comedy" shows told a total of 1,463 jokes about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris -- but 1,428 of them were about Trump, and only 35 were about Harris. That's a whopping 40:1 ratio or almost 98 percent to 2 percent.

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'No ****': Comedy Shows Go All In On Kelly Calling Trump a Fascist

October 24th, 2024 10:36 AM

Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly has a habit of being the go-to source for those seeking tantalizing anti-Trump stories, even as other former Trump administration officials who have soured on him cast doubt on them. However, for the men of late night comedy on Wednesday, if an anti-Trump story confirms their pre-existing biases, it must be true.

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Hillary, Fallon Promote 'Exciting' Harris Campaign

September 20th, 2024 10:00 AM

NBC’s Jimmy Fallon welcomed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Thursday’s taping of the Tonight Show to promote her new book and essentially rename the show the Kamala Harris Promotion Show.

The Incredible Shrinking Late-Night Lineup

September 14th, 2024 1:30 PM

Johnny Carson wouldn’t recognize today’s “Tonight Show.”