On Friday night’s The 11th Hour, MSNBC host Symone Sanders ran a segment discussing the recent announcement of CBS’s move to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, ending David Letterman’s legacy. Despite indicators pointing towards financial implications, panelists, including co-creator of The Daily Show and abortion activist Liz Winstead, decided it was purely political and President Trump's fault.
Hinting that Colbert got his start with political satire with her, Sanders asked for Lizz Winstead's reaction to the cancelation, teeing her up to push the unfounded conspiracy theory and lash out at his conservative competition:
SANDERS: Lizz, you discovered Stephen Colbert. He was a correspondent on Good Morning America, some would argue he was writing puff pieces, you stole him, put him on at The Daily Show. What is your reaction to all of this?
LIZZ WINSTEAD: There is not a snowball’s chance in hell there is not politics behind this, I simply don’t believe it.
SANDERS: Why?
WINSTEAD: Because Stephen Colbert is a threat on many levels, Stephen Colbert is not only a brilliant satirist. Stephen Colbert is a staunch Catholic Christian, wears it, and brings the social justice piece coming from his core. And every single night he knows how to walk that line of humiliating Trump and the policies, with the gravitas that the right cannot do.
Have you ever seen them try to be funny? Gutfeld and that whole gang of garbage, it is like — it is so not even close and – and I just believe that everybody is scared and it’s, and I know we’re going to talk about it, but like when so many companies have to rely so much on mergers and Trump and all of that.
While Winstead claimed, “There is not a snowball’s chance in hell there is not politics behind this,” the facts say otherwise.
Despite a 40 percent decrease in advertising revenue since 2018 and the fact that it had been reportedly operating at a $40 million loss per year, MSNBC still chose to strictly cite politics as the reason for the cancellation. CBS also reported the cancelling of six other shows in 2025, a far cry from the narrative that Colbert was being singled out.
Despite Winstead calling Fox’s late night show Gutfeld a “gang of garbage” they continue to top the ratings among all late night shows and outpaced Winstead's Daily Show viewership by 2.295 million.
In spite of all this, Sanders and Political Analyst Jonathan Allen still pinned the blame on Trump (Click “expand”):
SANDERS: It is not a side story that, like the press, is a part of the story. Because tonight, John, you've got Donald Trump posting that he loves the Colbert got fired and that that other late night hosts are next. So is this a message?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Yeah, it's absolutely a message. He's taking credit for it, right? I mean, it's not like everybody's like, oh, what happened behind the scenes? And Donald Trump's basically doing an end zone dance. And, you know, indicating to everybody he's the one who caught the ball and ran it down the sideline and probably threw it to himself. So yeah, it's absolutely a message.
Satire is the lifeblood of a free society. And, you know, as an adjunct to that, I think a free press very much in the same vein of that satire. You know, I would just say for journalists like you, you have to like, kind of put blinders onto it and you just do your job and you report as much as you can and, you know, without fear or favor. And, you know, if the chips fall in an ugly way, if reporting is stifled, if comedy is stifled, if dissent is stifled, it's not going to be because journalists back down.
Despite Colbert’s ability to operate at the same profit loss as the WNBA, Allen believed Trump was taking away free press and pinned him as the sole contributor for the cancellation. As much as MSNBC made it seem like Trump came in and instantly canceled the show, CBS allowed for Colbert's late night show to air until May of 2026.
Winstead ended the segment with a rosy prediction for Colbert debunking her earlier pearl clutching:
The concept of late night now is so different. You know. How people watch late night. It's not appointment viewing the way it used to be. And when I watch some of the people that I love the most on YouTube and on TikTok, I feel like wherever Stephen ends up, he's going to get eight bazillion more viewers and he's going to have the control that he needs.
They spent the whole segment trying to fearmonger the end of free speech by the Trump administration, then Winstead went on to say things will be better for him.
The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle
11:37:37 PM ET
July 18th, 2025(…)
SYMONE SANDERS: CBS has abruptly canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after 33 years on the air, between Colbert and David Letterman. The network insists that the decision was strictly financial. But tonight, there are growing calls from lawmakers for transparency, and the Writers Guild of America is demanding an investigation.
All of this comes days after Colbert used his show to criticize CBS's parent company, Paramount, over its $16 million settlement with Donald Trump. Some suspect the settlement could be tied to a merger. Paramount was trying to push through with Skydance, and Colbert openly called it a, quote, “big fat bribe.” And today, we learned the head of Skydance was in Washington just this week, pushing for Trump's FCC to approve the multibillion dollar deal.
The nightcap is still here. Lizz, you discovered Stephen Colbert. He was a correspondent on Good Morning America, some would argue he was writing puff pieces, you stole him, put him on at The Daily Show. What is your reaction to all of this?
LIZZ WINSTEAD: There is not a snowball’s chance in hell there is not politics behind this, I simply don’t believe it.
SANDERS: Why?
WINSTEAD: Because Stephen Colbert is a threat on many levels, Stephen Colbert is not only a brilliant satirist. Stephen Colbert is a staunch Catholic Christian, wears it, and brings the social justice piece coming from his core. And every single night he knows how to walk that line of humiliating Trump and the policies, with the gravitas that the right cannot do.
Have you ever seen them try to be funny? Gutfeld and that whole gang of garbage, it is like — it is so not even close and – and I just believe that everybody is scared and it’s, and I know we’re going to talk about it, but like when so many companies have to rely so much on mergers and Trump and all of that.
The people who resonate the most oftentimes are the comics, who can mix politics and humor and expose hypocrisy in that way that makes you feel smarter, makes you feel hopeful, and those two things are key, and that's the one thing he does.
SANDERS: You know, and my experience when I was a spokesperson on the other side of this, and now hosting shows, I know that the reporters and the media organizations, they never want to make themselves a story. You know, people are very focused on, and rightfully so, you know getting to the answers for their readers, for the audience. But I do think that the way the President of the United States has targeted media organizations with surgical precision is a key story of the second Trump administration.
It is not a side story that, like the press, is a part of the story. Because tonight, John, you've got Donald Trump posting that he loves the Colbert got fired and that that other late night hosts are next. So is this a message?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Yeah, it's absolutely a message. He's taking credit for it, right? I mean, it's not like everybody's like, oh, what happened behind the scenes? And Donald Trump's basically doing an end zone dance. And, you know, indicating to everybody he's the one who caught the ball and ran it down the sideline and probably threw it to himself. So yeah, it's absolutely a message.
Satire is the lifeblood of a free society. And, you know, as an adjunct to that, I think a free press very much in the same vein of that satire. You know, I would just say for journalists like you, you have to like, kind of put blinders onto it and you just do your job and you report as much as you can and, you know, without fear or favor. And, you know, if the chips fall in an ugly way, if reporting is stifled, if comedy is stifled, if dissent is stifled, it's not going to be because journalists back down.
(…)
11:42:06 p.m. Eastern
CHARLES COLEMAN JR.: Two things can be true, I think for Paramount, this does make financial sense in the sense of trying to shave things down to make this deal with Skydance -- Hold on, hold on.
SANDERS: I didn't say anything.
COLEMAN: There was a look on your face.
[Crosstalk]
SANDERS: I made a face but I did think it was the highest rated show. They didn't say they offered him a pay cut. They said the show's gone.
COLEMAN: Right. Okay. And that's fair. That's fair.
If we're following this journey, we've seen Paramount and its subsequent entities consistently laying off hundreds of people. And so I don't necessarily think it's an either-or. I think that the justification on the surface can be, oh, it's a financial consideration. But in reality, what's driving this is this intersection of a shifting media market and trying to survive.
So you have paramount, CBS trying to survive and figure its way out with this merger or this sale to Skydance. And ultimately, the person who can stand in the way of that, because he did it before, is Donald Trump.
(…)
11:43:36 p.m. Eastern
WINSTEAD: And I would also say too, that this is not this has been happening for two years. Like, when Trump said he was running again and started making promises and started taking on the media, political satirists, people like me doing shows out on the road in local media-friendly places where we would be able to get booked on “Good Morning This City” no longer. All of a sudden you're a little bit edgy. We'd rather have the chef from down the street. And that has become more and more and more prevalent. And so they've been watching this for a long time and and it's been dribs and drabs. And I think we look at this as the beginning of whatever.
(…)
The concept of late night now is so different. You know. How people watch late night. It's not appointment viewing the way it used to be. And when I watch some of the people that I love the most on YouTube and on TikTok, I feel like wherever Stephen ends up, he's going to get eight bazillion more viewers and he's going to have the control that he needs.
(…)
