Late night host Stephen Colbert on CBS on September 17, 2025

During the taping of the Thursday episode of "The Late Show," comedian Stephen Colbert spoke out harshly against both President Donald Trump's administration and ABC after his late night colleague Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air.

Colbert previewed the latest episode of his CBS show in a Thursday night post to his official Instagram account, and began by taking Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Brendan Carr to task for his actions that led to ABC suspending Kimmel, calling it a "blatant assault on the freedom of speech." The CBS host pointed out that just hours after Carr said he was considering revoking the broadcast licenses of ABC affiliates that continued to air Kimmel's show, ABC announced it had taken Kimmel off the air "indefinitely."

"This may seem bad, but Carr was quick to assure everyone, posting, 'while this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values,'" Colbert said, quoting a tweet from the FCC chairman.

"Well you know what my community values are, buster? Freedom of speech!" Colbert said to applause.

The Daily Beast reported that during a question-and-answer session with the studio audience prior to Thursday's taping, Colbert harshly criticized ABC's leadership. And he acknowledged that while CBS dropped "The Late Show" from its programming schedule after paying Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over a 60 Minutes segment, it still wouldn't have capitulated due to a threat from the FCC chairman.

“I’ll say this for my network: they wouldn’t have done this,” Colbert told the audience. “Regardless of what you think, that has already been done and how that looks, this is weak.”

ABC was pummeled by critics after preempting Kimmel, though Trump celebrated ABC's ousting of the comedian in a Wednesday post to his Truth Social account. He then called on NBC to take similar action against late night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, who he called "total losers."

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