Stephen Colbert explains why he made ‘The Late Show’ more political

Stephen Colbert recently shared The New York Times that after an uneven first few months on “The Late Show,” his producer encouraged him to lean back on his political roots.

Colbert initially said the plan was to retire from politics following his transition from “The Colbert Report” to “The Late Show.” He explained to NYT: “It was my instinct to be less current, because I didn’t want to engage in what I saw as an increasingly controversial public debate. And I thought, ‘Aren’t there other ways to have fun with the audience?'”

But then the 2016 national party conventions gave Colbert a chance to push hard for political humor. The late-night host said that at the time he felt like “Clint Eastwood in ‘Unforgiven,’ or is it a different movie? He’s buried his guns. And I thought, you know, I’ve buried those damn guns. I was talking to Paul Dinello — he’s one of my oldest friends and one of my producers here — and he said, ‘You’re having fun, and people like to see that.’ And I said, ‘But that means I have to dig up the weapons.’ And he says, ‘Buddy, that’s the part the audience wants to see.’”

Colbert will soon air his final episode of “The Late Show.” His home network, CBS, announced the end of the historic late-night program in July 2025, calling the move “a financial decision against a challenging late-night backdrop.” Some have speculated that CBS ended “The Late Show” to curry favor with longtime critic President Donald Trump, who could have used the FCC to block a then-pending merger between CBS’ parent company, Paramount, and Skydance.

Colbert told The Times that while he does “joke” about CBS’s ulterior motives, he doesn’t dispute “their motivations” for ending “The Late Show.”

“It’s possible that two things could be true,” Colbert said. “Broadcasting could be in trouble. They can’t generate revenue because of things like YouTube, because of the competition from streaming. They have the books and I don’t feel like arguing with them about what they say their business model is and how it doesn’t work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say it was over, they had really wanted me to sign a contract for a long time. So something changed.”