Rachel Maddow urges Paramount to undo Stephen Colbert firing, calls it 'a huge embarrassment'
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Rachel Maddow is sounding the alarm, and this time, she’s naming names.
Speaking on Nicolle Wallace’s 'The Best People' podcast on Monday, Dec 8, the MS NOW host urged CBS and parent company Paramount to reverse their decision to fire Stephen Colbert, calling the network’s direction since the Paramount-Skydance merger “a huge embarrassment.”
And she made it clear she believes the choice was driven by fear of President Donald Trump, not finances.
Rachel Maddow says Stephen Colbert’s firing was a political move disguised as business call
Maddow didn’t sugarcoat her frustration with the explanation CBS gave when it announced in July that 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' would end in May 2026.
Calling the cancellation “absolutely transparent,” she argued that no one truly believes the network axed the highest-rated late-night host in America purely to save money.
“‘Oh, it’s a financial decision.’ Right,” she said sarcastically. “Because having the highest-rated late night show in America for years is somehow financially unsustainable now when it wasn’t before?”
She pinned the change directly on the “Trump-connected oligarchs” who she says now wield power inside Paramount, adding a pointed swipe at incoming CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss: “At the same time that you’ve got Trump-connected oligarchs taking over this company and putting a right-wing blogger in charge of CBS News.”
Rachel Maddow urges CBS to correct course before Stephen Colbert’s final episode airs
Despite the official cancellation date set for May 2026, Maddow insisted the network still has time to walk back what she views as a humiliating retreat.
“They should reverse the decision about Colbert,” she said. “He’s still on the air now, he’s still got a few months on the horizon left before they plan on taking him off the air. They should change that.”
In her view, the network knows the move was shameful and is already trying to fix its image. “They’re trying to sort of live down their shame already,” she added. “And I think in terms of the way they are capitulating, the CBS News takeover has been a huge embarrassment to everybody involved in it."
Rachel Maddow links decision to broader pattern of corporate fear under Trump
Throughout the conversation, Maddow emphasized how media companies have spent the last year bending to Trump’s preferences, terrified of falling into his crosshairs.
She reminded listeners that the president’s approval rating has sunk to “negative 24 in the latest Gallup poll,” arguing that networks siding with him now are choosing the losing team.
She didn’t hold back on the broader implications either, referencing Trump’s rhetoric and the controversies surrounding alleged US operations in the Caribbean. “Since the cancellation, he’s only gotten worse,” she noted. “That’s what’s happened, CBS - that’s what’s happened, Paramount, since you decided that you would try to please Donald Trump by taking Stephen Colbert off the air. Like, maybe don’t do that.”
