Gutfeld: It’s kind of like ‘The View’ with less testosterone
‘The Five’ critiques a segment by Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert that was aired on CBS.
After innumerable tortuous years of dismal, predictable, political commentary, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" is finally being put out of its misery.
"The Late Show" was reportedly losing CBS around $40 million per year, an extraordinary number that somehow feels low given the abhorrent "quality" of nightly programming it provided. How could it lose CBS that much money? An astronomical salary for Colbert to perform "Hey guys, you ever hear that Donald Trump is bad?" jokes night after night and presumably more astronomical salaries for a team of writers to come up with such brilliant comedic wit.
Few, outside of employees at the show and those in Hollywood who will watch anything that portrays Trump as the bad guy, will miss it. There are no recurring skits that will last in the collective memory. No classic episodes that went "viral." Unless you count one of the worst episodes of television in the history of the United States, the infamous "Vax-scene" performance, as "classic."
DEMOCRATS FAWN OVER STEPHEN COLBERT FOR HOLDING 'TRUTH TO POWER' AFTER CBS CANCELS SHOW
Stephen Colbert attends the WSJ. Magazine 2025 Innovator Awards at MoMA in New York City on Oct. 29, 2025. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
But don't tell that to USA Today. In a vomit-inducing piece of hagiography, the paper published a farewell to Colbert, entitled: "A farewell to 'Late Show's Stephen Colbert, TV's gallant comic avenger"
Seriously.
The author praises Colbert, saying his 83-year-old mother was devastated that Colbert was leaving, describing her face as "darkening" when mentioning it.
"Colbert is the consummate interviewer," he says, "able to talk intelligently and find humor on any topic. When things go way off semi-script, he has the nimbleness to make the fresh moment even more memorable."
Truly incomprehensible. As is his praise for Colbert's political commentary, which, along with his partners in comedy crime Jimmy Kimmel and beyond, has almost assuredly permanently ended late night talk shows on legacy media.
Stephen Colbert hosts The Late Show with guests Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers during the May 11, 2026, episode in New York. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS)
"And, yes, Colbert wades into politics most every night," he writes. "In his near-decade of 'The Late Show,' it has been a godsend for viewers, like my mom, trying to process the onslaught of sometimes surreal events unfolding around the clock on CNN."
Well, at least he's honest about why Colbert exists: to provide incompetent political commentary and therapy for elderly members of the Democratic Party.
"When Colbert goes on a riff on the state of affairs, Mom gets positively giddy," he writes, confirming that exact dynamic. "It's like he's personally facing and voicing her battles."
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Perhaps even more remarkable, the writer describes Colbert's unwatchable show as "must-watch," and blames the exit on "politically intolerant times" first and "struggling economics" second. "Each of this final week's shows will be absolutely compulsory live viewing as well in [sic] the increasingly viral grand goodbye," he explains without a hint of awareness.
This article, absurd as it is, is quite illuminating. Colbert isn't about comedy, jokes, or even entertainment. He's there to tell senior citizen left-wing viewers what to think. A comforting blanket of unthinking, unblinking compliance with whatever the institutional left thinks about a given topic.
Stephen Colbert and guest Jimmy Kimmel appear during The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Sept. 30, 2025, in New York. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS)
Jokes about Eric Swalwell's spectacular implosion after a series of allegations of improper behavior? No interest whatsoever. Mindless, cringeworthy slop about Donald Trump being like Hitler? Come on down.
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Colbert is an "avenger" all right. To avenge means to inflict punishment or harm. For years, he's punished any thinking person who's ever been unwittingly exposed to his "comedy." And in doing so, indefinitely discredited what used to be a valuable profession.
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