The world of liberal late night comedy got even more liberal in 2025 with the inauguration of a new Republican president. According to a new Media Research Center study, the late night hosts told 12,011 of their 13,097 political jokes about conservatives, which comes out to 92 percent, up from 82 percent last year.
From January 6 through December 19, MRC analysts analyzed all six of the daily late night talk shows: Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and After Midnight until its June 12 cancellation.
A complete breakdown of all 13,097 jokes can be found here, but detailed below is a summary of all six shows, both collectively and individually.
Late Night 2025 Findings: 818 Episodes
Of the remaining jokes, 982 (7 percent) targeted the left and 104 (1 percent) were directed at people, groups, or institutions not associated with either side. This was the first time in the history of the MRC joke count study that liberal jokes failed to reach quadruple digits. Additionally, 593 unique targets were joked about, 392 of which were on the right, 173 of which were on the left, and 28 of which were non-partisan.
This year’s top ten featured only one Democrat. The list included Donald Trump (7,045), Elon Musk (644), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (371), Pete Hegseth (322), Melania Trump (225), Joe Biden (220), JD Vance (217), MAGA/Trump supporters (144), Republicans (135), and Eric Trump (134).
When the hosts did decide to joke about Democrats, it was often done in a way that lamented that the party and its leadership were allegedly too cowardly and or incompetent to effectively stand up to Trump. This made the comparisons between equivalent liberal and conservative targets relatively close.
For example, jokes about GOP leadership barely outnumbered those about Democratic leadership 99-92 (Mike Johnson: 97 and John Thune: 2 vs. Chuck Schumer: 79 and Hakeem Jeffries: 13). The hosts also told 92 generic Democratic jokes. Additionally, generic conservative jokes outnumbered generic liberal ones 43-35.
Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn was the most joked-about conservative media personality at 24, while CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was the most joked-about liberal media personality at 8. In terms of media organizations, Fox News led with 90, while CBS and Paramount led all liberal outlets with 12 in another example of blue-on-blue criticism, given CBS settling its 60 Minutes lawsuit with Trump and the cancellation of Colbert.
ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live!: 156 Episodes
Note: 24 episodes from June 23-August 21 were guest-hosted. All numbers below are cumulative.
ABC’s resident insult hurler did not let a September suspension stop him from being the most liberal of the liberal comedians and setting multiple firsts in the history of MRC late night joke studies. 
In 2025, Kimmel became the first host to not be cancelled partway through the year to fail to reach triple digits in his liberal joke count, only telling 87 (3 percent) of his total about the left. By contrast, 3,046 (97 percent) of his 3,144 total jokes were about the right. That left 11 non-partisan jokes. Kimmel targeted 161 conservative individuals, groups, or organizations in 2025 compared to only 25 liberal and six non-partisan ones.
Kimmel’s second historical tidbit was that his 2025 was the first time a host had zero left-wingers in his top. That list included Donald Trump (1,668), Elon Musk (158), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (99), Melania Trump (89), Pete Hegseth (88), Eric Trump (63), JD Vance (57), MAGA/Trump supporters (49), Donald Trump Jr. (44), and Republicans (40).
Joe Biden (26) was Kimmel’s most joked-about Democrat at 16th overall.
Kimmel ended up telling 40 jokes about GOP congressional leaders (Mike Johnson: 39 and John Thune: 1) and only four about Democrats (Chuck Schumer: 3 and Hakeem Jefferies: 1)
Generic jokes about Republicans outnumbered those about Democrats 40-6, while those about conservatives outpaced liberals 10-4.
Newsmax’s Carl Higbie was Kimmel’s most joked-about conservative media personality at 11 while MS NOW’s Al Sharpton was joked about once. When it came to media outlets, jokes about Fox News outnumbered those about CBS 25-2.
CBS: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: 152 Episodes
While the news that CBS will be ending Colbert’s show in 2026 hit liberals hard, it did end up making Colbert’s group therapy sessions more valuable to them. For everybody else, it was another year of The Late Show being The DNC Show. 
In 2025, Colbert told 2,510 of his 2,732 (92 percent) of his political jokes about conservatives. By contrast, he only told 188 (7 percent) about liberals and 34 (1 percent) about non-partisan targets. Colbert also went after 156 conservative, 66 liberal, and 19 non-partisan targets in the last year.
Colbert’s top ten featured only one liberal. It consisted of Donald Trump (1,458), Elon Musk (106), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (95), Pete Hegseth (85), JD Vance (52), Melania Trump (43), Republicans (28), Joe Biden (27), Eric Trump (26), MAGA/Trump supporters (22), and Kristi Noem (22).
Colbert’s jokes about Republican leadership outnumbered those about Democratic leadership 14-8 (Mike Johnson: 14 vs. Chuck Schumer: 6 and Hakeem Jefferies: 2) Colbert also told 10 generic jokes about Democrats, while telling four generic jokes each about liberals and conservatives.
Fox’s Rupert Murdoch (5) was the most joked about conservative media personality while CBS’s Gayle King and Olivia Nuzzi tied for three for those on the left. Fox News and Colbert’s CBS bosses tied at 7 for the most joked about news outlets.
CBS: After Midnight: 63 Episodes
Note 1: After Midnight was cancelled on June 12.
Note 2: The May 20 episode was guest-hosted by Lisa Gilroy. Gilroy told zero political jokes.
CBS’s short-lived experiment to bring something new to the late night comedy scene with its pseudo-game show fizzled away in June when Taylor Tomlinson decided to devote herself to stand-up full-time. While liberals and industry insiders lamented the departure of late night’s only full-time female host, the rest of the country can be assured that the Luigi Mangione fangirl no longer has a network show. 
In 2025, Tomlinson told 135 of her 146 jokes (92 percent) about conservatives. Tomlinson told 11 jokes (8 percent) about liberals and zero about non-partisan targets. Similarly, she joked about 28 separate people or organizations, 23 of whom were on the right.
Tomlinson’s top ten featured only one left-wing target. The list included Donald Trump (55), Elon Musk (19), Edward “Big Balls” Coristine (6), Kash Patel (6), Pete Hegseth (6), Democrats (5), JD Vance (5), Mark Zuckerberg (5), MAGA/Trump supporters (4), Eric Trump (4), and George Santos (4).
Zuckerberg is considered a right-leaning individual due to the late night hosts’ dislike of his role in Trump’s inauguration and for backing down on META’s partnership with the fact-checking websites.
Tomlinson told zero political jokes about the four Congressional leaders. She also told zero and one generic jokes, respectively, about Republicans and conservatives while telling one generic joke about liberals.
Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn and The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro tied for Tomlinson’s most joked-about conservative media personality with two, while no liberal media personality was joked about. On the other hand, The New York Times and CBS were each joked about once, while no conservative media outlet was ridiculed.
NBC: Late Night with Seth Meyers: 141 Episodes
Due three times a week “Closer Look,” Seth Meyers gets more jokes in per episode than his fellow hosts, but beyond all the elaborate metaphors and analogies is a man who is most explicit about turning the late night comedy show into another version of an MS NOW program.
Meyers told 3,013 jokes in 2025, and 2,721 (90 percent) were about conservatives. That left 277 (9 percent) about liberals and 15 (1 percent) about non-partisans. Meyers also targeted 127 conservatives, 50 liberals, and 9 non-partisan people or organizations in 2025. 
Three Democrats made Meyers’s top ten this year. The list included Donald Trump (1,885), Elon Musk (134), Joe Biden (100), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (57), JD Vance (53), Rudy Giuliani (42), Pete Hegseth (34), Bernie Sanders (29), Chuck Schumer (27), and Fox News (27).
In a good example of progressive comedians attacking liberal politicians for allegedly being too weak, jokes about Democratic leadership outnumbered those about Republican leadership 31-19 (Chuck Schumer: 27 and Hakeem Jeffries: 4 vs. Mike Johnson: 18 and John Thune: 1). Meyers’s contempt for the Democratic Party made it so that jokes about Democrats outnumbered those about Republicans 24-21. Generic jokes about conservatives outnumbered the ones about liberals 6-3.
Tucker Carlson and former Fox colleagues Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham tied for the most joked-about conservative media personality with four, while CNN’s data guru Harry Enten led liberal media personalities with five as well. Fox’s aforementioned 27 led conservative organizations, while the White House Correspondents Association led liberals with four. Meyers’s condemnations of the WHCA were yet another example of left-on-left criticism for the latter’s decision to cancel Late Night writer Amber Ruffin’s performance at the association’s dinner in April.
Comedy Central: The Daily Show: 144 Episodes
For the third year in a row, The Daily Show did not have a permanent host, instead relying on the returning rotation of Jon Stewart, Desi Lydic, Jordan Klepper, Ronny Chieng, Michael Kosta, as well as new rotational host, Josh Johnson. Johnson was the most unbalanced host in terms of his right-left percentages, while Stewart was the most balanced. Perhaps more than any other show, The Daily Show’s jokes about the left were from the left making the comparisons between analogous liberals and conservatives actually disadvantage liberals on multiple instances. 
All told, Daily Show hosts told 2,624 political jokes in 2025. Of these, 2,321 (89 percent) were about conservatives. That left 274 jokes (10 percent) about liberals and 29 about non-partisan targets (1 percent). At the same time, The Daily Show ridiculed 180 conservative, 86 liberal, and 11 non-partisan different targets.
The Daily Show’s top ten featured two left-leaning targets. They were Donald Trump (1,128), Elon Musk (139), Pete Hegseth (101), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (86), MAGA/Trump supporters (46), Republicans (42), Chuck Schumer (38), Democrats (37), Stephen Miller (29), Melania Trump (29), and Fox News (29).
Hosts told 44 jokes about Democratic leadership (Schumer: 38, Jefferies: 6) and 21 about Republican leadership (Mike Johnson: 21) The Daily Show’s generic jokes about liberals outnumber those about conservatives 23-20.
RAV’s Brian Glenn was the most joked about conservative media personality with 12, while CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was the most joked about liberal media personality with 3. FNC’s 29 jokes led conservative media outlets, while CNN’s four led all liberal media.
NBC: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: 161 Episodes
Jimmy Fallon hosted the most number of shows in 2025 but also told the fewest amount of jokes amongst the hosts who were not cancelled halfway through the year. However, the inauguration of a Republican president meant that Fallon’s percentage of jokes about conservatives skyrocketed this year and was comparable to the other hosts. 
In 2025, Fallon told 1,438 total political jokes. Of which, 1,278 (89 percent) were about conservatives, while 145 (10 percent) were about liberals, and 15 (1 percent) were about non-partisans. Fallon also joked about 108 conservatives, 51 liberals, and seven non-partisans.
Fallon’s top ten featured three Democrats. The list featured Donald Trump (851), Elon Musk (88), Joe Biden (40), Melania Trump (36), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (32), JD Vance (22), Eric Trump (16), Donald Trump Jr. (15), Bernie Sanders (12), and Democrats (10).
When it came to congressional leaders, Fallon only joked about Mike Johnson and Chuck Schumer and told five about each man. Additionally, Fallon told four jokes about Republicans this year, two about conservatives, and one about liberals.
Fallon largely stayed away from joking about media personalities, telling one joke about Rupert Murdoch in 2025 and two each about Fox and CNN.
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NewsBusters has been keeping an extensive joke count since the start of 2023. Since then, the comedy shows have told 85 percent, or 31,013 jokes about conservatives out of a total of 36,356. This includes 15,492 (50 percent) about Donald Trump.
