One constant that has presented itself during both of President Donald Trump’s two terms is that the left wants to blame him for everything.
Yes, I do mean everything — including the decline of late-night comedy.
Back in July, when news reports revealed that late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert was losing his job, left-leaning members of the chattering class melted down. They were losing one of their favorite anti-Trump comedians, which put them all in their feelings.
Naturally, the predictable scapegoat for Colbert’s descent was the Orange Man What Is Bad™. Some intimated that he might have been directly responsible for this development. Others argued that his supposed control over America’s political environment precipitated the comedian’s misfortunes.
In fact, they are still talking about it weeks later.
In an article for The Wrap, author Adam Chitwood repeated this bizarre theory. He noted that after Trump won the 2016 election, “late night comedy wasted no time finding humor throughout his first term in office.”
Yet, in his second term, things seem to be different, according to the author.
Late night comics like Colbert, Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and “The Daily Show’s” Desi Lydic and Jordan Klepper (the last three of them nominated in the short-form or hosted nonfiction categories) were mixing standard zingers with more pointed critiques throughout the first few months of Trump’s second term, but the heat got turned way up when, in mid-July, Colbert abruptly announced that CBS would be ending “The Late Show” in May 2026.
The announcement came only two days after the show had been nominated for its eighth consecutive talk-show Emmy. While the network said the decision was “purely financial,” the timing raised more than a few eyebrows: The axing came just after Paramount settled its “60 Minutes” lawsuit with the president for $16 million, thus paving the way for Trump-friendly FCC commissioner Brendan Carr to finally approve Skydance’s acquisition of the company one week later.
Chitwood quoted The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart when he implied that “the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment” is the reason why companies are making different decisions when it comes to “Orange Man Bad” programming.
Yet, even though the author points the finger at Trump for this, he also admits that late night television has rapidly been losing viewers.
So late night has chosen to fight back, but it comes at a perilous time for the medium as the decline of linear viewership has hit these shows particularly hard. Six years ago, the average audience for Colbert’s show was 3.81 million, according to Nielsen. By the second quarter of 2025, it was 2.4 million. During that same period, average viewership has dropped 13% for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and 51% for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” Ad revenue has experienced a downturn as well.
The dwindling numbers come despite robust social and YouTube performances for many of these brands, but that reach doesn’t make up for the traditional ad dollars lost. Intangibles like brand ambassadorship and viral moments have kept the shows afloat and continue to provide value to their corporate owners. Still, as major corporations bend the knee to Trump after he lashes out at anyone who dares to poke fun, late night comedians find themselves quite literally sticking their necks out.
Late night host Seth Meyers told The Wrap that he did not believe the shows constitute “a quieter voice than it was 10 years ago” but that “there are challenges to make itt as valuable a property.”
Meyers acknowledged that his show gained traction for hyperfocusing on Trump during the early years his first term. But now, the atmosphere has changed.
“We had to shift from sort of this fist-shaking, ‘This isn’t who we are!’ to finding comedy in the fact that this is who we are, and we have to figure out how to be something else,” he told The Wrap.
These people still don’t get it.
Yes, it may have been lucrative to fixate on Trump during his first term. He had pulled off an upset victory as a polarizing and unconventional politician. TDS became even more pronounced during that time period. But when we fast-forward to 2025, Trump-centric programming isn’t going to cut it anymore — even though he’s the current president.
To put it simply, we are living in a new time, and the left has not yet caught up.
You can only scream “Orange Man Bad” for so long before people start tuning you out because they are more concerned about the exorbitant prices they pay while standing in the Walmart checkout line.
Even former late night talk show host Jay Leno tried to impart some wisdom to his contemporaries. He noted how his show routinely mocked both sides of the political divide instead of focusing on attacking one party. In this way, Leno managed to appeal to everyone — and it was hilarious. Most Americans don’t mind if a comedian takes some shots at their party — whether it is deserved or not. However, nobody wants to tune in to a show that will predictably only target one side of the aisle while pretending their political team is as pure as the driven snow.
When I watch a comedy show, I want to laugh. I don’t care what the comedian’s politics are. What I don’t want is to watch a clapter-ridden lecture on why his political beliefs are correct and why everyone who doesn’t agree with them is a mustache-twirling victim trying to destroy the country. Even if I happen to agree with the person’s politics, it is still off-putting.
What is telling is that everything I just wrote is common sense. Yet, these comedians are so entrenched in their political echo chambers that they have tricked themselves into believing that Americans want these people lecturing them on Trump’s latest controversy.
The truth is, they don’t. They just want to relax after a hard day of work and have a few laughs. Since late night television is no longer delivering this product, people have stopped watching. As long as this is the case, late night television will continue its gradual descent into obscurity.
Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has never been less popular as voters reject its globalist agenda.
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