MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow said CBS should reconsider canceling ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ due to how the decision will be seen throughout history.
Maddow complained to co-host Nicolle Wallace about the culture being seen from the network since the Paramount-Skydance merger over the summer.
‘The CBS News takeover has been a huge embarrassment to everybody involved in it. And they should reverse the decision about Colbert,‘ Maddow, 52, declared on Wallace’s podcast Tuesday.
The host went on to broach claims the cancelation was a form of political retribution, after Colbert slammed a settlement Paramount reached with Donald Trump as ‘a big, fat bribe’ three days before receiving word the Late Show would be canceled next May.
The $16million settlement was seen by many as necessary to earn the Trump administration’s approval of the since-solidified merger of the two companies, now led by 42-year-old David Ellison, son of billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison.
Speaking to Paramount’s new leadership, Maddow warned: ‘Like, maybe you can now see where in history you’re going to end up. And now’s your chance to try to alter that and try to get it right. And I think that a lot of institutions are in that same boat.’
Wallace reacted: ‘Well, I was just going to say, like, if you say, like, “and now do Jimmy Kimmel.” So they make an equally cowardly decision to take him off the air. They have an outcry.’
Rachel Maddow called on CBS and its parent company to reverse its decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Maddow, 52, is seen toasting Colbert on his show last week, in honor of MSNBC’s rebrand to MS Now
Kimmel, ABC’s late-night host, had his show pulled for several days in September by Disney after the host directed controversial comments at MAGA in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Before the suspension was announced, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license if Kimmel was not held accountable.
Wallace said that both decisions set dangerous precedents.
Reacting, Maddow name-dropped the two ABC affiliate-carriers that refused to air Kimmel’s show following Carr’s threats. Disney fully pulled the plug on it for four episodes shortly thereafter, before reversing the decision.
‘I mean when, you know, Nexstar and Sinclair, you know, jumped up and said, “oh yes, Brendan Carr – what else would you like us to do?”‘ And they participated in that,’ Maddow said.
‘And Kimmel is taken off the air. You get the national outcry.
‘When he’s put back in, it’s not like there’s some backlash on the right,’ she complained.
‘Like, they know how wrong that is. Even within the MAGA movement, they know that it’s wrong for the president to be like, “this person is allowed to be on television and this person is not.” And, “anybody who jokes about me should be beheaded,” or whatever it is.
Maddow took aim at Paramount’s new leadership since its merger with Skydance over the summer, including CEO David Ellison
Ellison is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison (right), a well-known GOP donor who donated to Donald Trump’s campaign
‘The instincts are there. We’re still Americans. We get how stupid and wrong this is,’ Maddow continued.
She concluded by asserting, ‘these corporations kind of need to be disciplined.
‘Not they need to have discipline, but they need to be disciplined by public opinion and people expressing it.’
The remarks come days after Maddow’s appearance on Colbert’s show last week, and amid reports of friction between her and the hosts of Morning Joe inside MS NOW’s new Times Square headquarters. An MS NOW spokesperson denied those claims in a statement last week.
The network rebranded from MSNBC last month, relocating from its longtime office at 30 Rock in the process.
CBS News, meanwhile, is being led by Bari Weiss, a right-leaning opinion journalist. Ellison is the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The two are currently bidding on CNN and its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, with backing from several sovereign wealth funds and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.
Leave a Reply