President Donald Trump on Wednesday fired another salvo against late-night TV hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon as well as radio icon Howard Stern, saying they could soon follow in the footsteps of “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who was canceled last month by CBS.
“Colbert has no talent,” he said. “Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next. They’re gonna be going.”
Colbert’s show was canceled as CBS’ parent company, Paramount, attempted to complete a merger that required federal approval. The company also paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit that most legal experts believed was without merit.
Critics said the company was trying to win Trump’s favor to help the deal pass FCC muster.
It was approved shortly after Colbert was canceled, despite being the highest-rated late-night show.
CBS said Colbert was canceled because his show was losing money, with some reports claiming the show was losing between $40 million and $50 million a year ― a number Colbert has seemed skeptical of during his evening monologues.
Trump predicted the other shows would follow in Colbert’s footsteps.
“I hear they’re gonna be going,” he said, without elaborating on where he heard that. “I don’t know, but I would imagine, because… Colbert has better ratings than Kimmel or Fallon.”
A reporter in the room also said that Stern “announced” that he was “parting ways” with SiriusXM. That hasn’t happened.
However, the US Sun reported that Sirius would cancel Stern when his contract expires at the end of this year. That report has not yet been verified.
Trump was a frequent guest on Stern’s show years ago, but clips from those broadcasts frequently resurface and embarrass the president. Just last month, a 2006 clip went viral in which Trump said he had no real “age limit” for dating.
“I don’t want to be like Congressman Foley, with, you know, 12-year-olds,” he said, referring to a GOP lawmaker who was forced to step down in 2006 after he sent lewd messages to young male congressional pages.
The clip resurfaced as Trump was trying to distance himself from late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was once a close friend.
Trump on Wednesday said he “hasn’t heard” Stern’s name in a while.
“I used to do his show. We used to have fun,” he said, then added that Stern’s show “went down” when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.
Trump has spent years railing against late-night shows and hosts that make fun of him, attacking them and threatening their corporate parents.
After watching Seth Meyers in January, he called the host “dumb and untalented” and “merely a slot filler for the Scum that runs Comcast.”
Then he took aim at the company itself.
“These are not shows or entertainment, they are simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican Party,” Trump said. “Comcast should pay a BIG price for this!”
Trump seems to have a special degree of hatred for Kimmel. During his first term, Trump reportedly tried to have Kimmel censored.
