CBS said The Late Show ’s cancellation was purely based on finances, despite Stephen Colbert being considered one of the best late-night hosts on a show that was comfortably winning its timeslot in the ratings.

A review by Fox News Digital found that left-wing journalists and other media figures made hundreds of appearances on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

“Luminarieses,” Colbert repeated as the audience laughed. “Somebody’s ‘brain power’ is in low battery mode.” He rolled a clip of Trump complaining about the term “artificial intelligence” because “I don’t like anything that’s artificial.” Given the president’s famous love of fast food and Diet Coke, Colbert found that claim hard to swallow.

Adam Sandler, Anderson Cooper, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver and Andy Cohen were among those who made surprise appearances on Monday's episode after CBS announced that the late night show would be ending in May 2026.

Colbert called it an “insane thing” to put on social media. “If you or I put up an AI video depicting the violent arrest of a former president, we would get a free ride in a windowless van to FBI headquarters, where they would put us to work redacting Trump’s name from the Epstein file,” Colbert said. And that may not even be the worst of it.

As host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the comedian has been successful, receiving critical praise and leading the program to regularly becoming the top-rated late-night show, outpacing his younger rivals Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel — albeit against the backdrop of what Reuters termed “late-night TV’s fade-out.

The Late Show' host Stephen Colbert said President Donald Trump's attacks on Barack Obama were distracting from his handling of the Epstein files.

Colbert’s late show on CBS has never won a TV Academy prize. The president could well now have changed that. The video plays like a cave painting from the Neolithic era or, even more distantly, from when late-night television still mattered: Stephen Colbert sits in the host chair and makes amends with Donald Trump.

After the Wall Street Journal's report on Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Stephen Colbert joked that Elon Musk is "always right about everything."

Gov. Josh Shapiro and Stephen Colbert, both critics of President Donald Trump, spoke about a variety of topics on the show, which is slated to end next year.