Stephen Colbert Gives CBS and Trump Middle Finger With Last Show |
Stephen Colbert Gives CBS and Trump Middle Finger With Last Show
Colbert’s show was pulled after he criticized CBS’s parent company Paramount and their decision to settle a lawsuit with Donald Trump.
For more than a decade, Stephen Colbert entertained Americans as CBS’s Late Show host, leading more than 1,800 episodes. On Thursday, he hosted his last one, a decision that CBS executives chalked up to financial reasons.
But the longtime comedian did not go out quietly. Instead, Colbert capped his exit with an eyebrow-raising copyright joke by ramping up the tunes—licensed tunes, to be exact.
The Late Show host was in the midst of running through the headlines during his “Meanwhile” segment when he mentioned that the owner of the Peanuts catalog had recently sued several entities—including the U.S. Department of the Interior—over the unlicensed use of the show’s iconic music, written by American jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi.
Cue the music: “Linus and Lucy.”
“Is the band right now playing the same Peanuts music that I just said people are being sued for for using without permission? Is that what they’re doing?” asked Colbert.
“Yeah,” Louis Cato, the show’s band leader, responded with a shrug.
“Oh no, I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money,” Colbert deadpanned.
LOL Stephen Colbert is making his band play licensed music during his final show so CBS – who fired him – will get sued and have to pay millions"Anyone illegally using that music is gonna have to pay through the nose--"[band starts playing]"Oh no! I hope this doesn't cost… pic.twitter.com/mOeZMXEZpv— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) May 22, 2026
LOL Stephen Colbert is making his band play licensed music during his final show so CBS – who fired him – will get sued and have to pay millions"Anyone illegally using that music is gonna have to pay through the nose--"[band starts playing]"Oh no! I hope this doesn't cost… pic.twitter.com/mOeZMXEZpv
Colbert’s show—the most popular in its time slot—was cancelled in August, three days after the comedian criticized Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Donald Trump. He claimed that the company’s payout to quell the president’s groundless lawsuit targeting Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview looked like a “big, fat bribe.”
The copyright gag will likely do no damage, however. Networks like CBS typically use broad blanket music licenses prearranged through entities such as ASCAP and BMI, which allow them to legally broadcast any copyrighted material within the catalog. The Peanuts tune that Colbert’s band played is within that fold.
Despite the bedlam consuming Trump—so much so that he has to miss his son’s wedding this weekend—he was quick to celebrate Colbert’s end, jeering on Truth Social that “Colbert is finally finished at CBS.”
“Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person,” wrote the president after Colbert’s final episode ended.
“You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk,” Trump added. “Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
Trump further insinuated that Colbert’s pink slip was anything but a coincidence. In another post Friday morning, Trump claimed that Colbert’s firing would be the “beginning of the end” for “untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts.”
“Others, of even less talent, to soon follow. May they all Rest in Peace!” he wrote.
Trump Adviser Explored Unnerving Plot to Ban All Voting Machines
The plan advanced far enough that the Trump administration was looking for a way to justify the ban.
The Trump administration considered banning voting machines in over 50 percent of the country by deeming Dominion Voting Machine software—used in 27 mostly blue states—a national security risk.
The plan, first reported by Reuters Friday, was spearheaded by White House adviser Kurt Olsen, whose primary job is to find ways to prove President Trump’s false rigged election claims to be true. Olsen’s plan was to force states to switch to hand counting ballots, a method many experts say leaves more room for potential cheating.
The plan advanced far enough last year that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other department officials began working to find a justification to implement it, but ultimately failed to do so, as there is no good reason to swap out the voting method of millions of people—especially right before a midterm election. There is no proof that voting machines have ever been hacked, despite the president’s repeated allegations.
The Trump administration appears desperate to gain an upper hand ahead of the midterms. In December, the Justice Department sued and raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and has filed lawsuits to gain voter rolls in more than 30 states. This is all aimed at creating chaos and doubt so that Trump can declare any election he loses fraudulent.
Both Secretary Lutnick and Olsen have yet to comment.
Epstein’s Assistant Names Three New Abusers in Harrowing Testimony
House Oversight Chair James Comer said Sarah Kellen’s revelation was “what we’ve been waiting for.”
Jeffrey Epstein’s former assistant has provided the House Oversight Committee with the names of three new alleged co-conspirators.
Sarah Kellen appeared before the committee in a closed-door hearing Thursday. Committee Chairman James Comer described her participation as forthcoming, and shared that her testimony was “what we’ve been waiting for.”
“Sarah Kellen has been very helpful. Of all the people we have interviewed thus far, this was by far the most substantive and productive interview that we’ve had,” Comer told reporters after the hearing. “She was very brave coming forward. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for her to go into detail about the abuse that she endured at the hands of Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell.
“One very positive thing today is she gave us three names of people that were involved in abuse. These were new names for us,” Comer continued.
The Kentucky Republican said that the committee would be releasing the transcript of Keller’s testimony as soon as possible, but that it would need to first redact the names of several mentioned victims.
“As far as the men that were the abusers—alleged abusers—the whole world will see that,” Comer said.
Kellen began working for Epstein in 2001 and stayed on his........