Comedy Central host Jon Stewart delivered an F-bomb loaded six-minute diatribe on Monday night in his first show since CBS cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
CBS announced on July 17 that Colbert’s show would end in May 2026, citing a lack of profitability and adding that the show itself would be retired at that time. Stewart claimed during “The Daily Show” that “fear and pre-compliance” are the real motivations behind the decision of Paramount to end the program.
“Look, I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with eight billion dollars at stake, but understand this, truly: the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not insignificant portion of that eight billion value came from those fucking shows,” Stewart claimed to cheers and applause from the in-studio audience. “That’s what made you that money: shows that say something, shows that take a stand, shows that are unafraid. And believe me, this is not ‘We speak truth to power.’ We don’t. We speak opinions to television cameras. But we try. We fucking try, every night.”
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“And if you believe, as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar, a) why will anyone watch you? And you are fucking wrong!” Stewart continued. “It’s just true! Do you want to know how impossible it is to stay on Lord Farquad’s good side?”
Stewart then played a news report about President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, over an article that claimed Trump sent disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein a bawdy letter celebrating his birthday.
“Donald Trump is suing Rupert Murdoch! The owner of Fox News! The man — other than Biden — maybe most responsible for getting Trump elected! Yeah! I fucking snuck that in there! Yeah!” Stewart said, to further cheers and applause. “FOX spends 24 hours a day blowing Trump and it’s not enough. Imagine suing someone mid-blow! How could you? ‘Finish up! Finish up down there, and I’ll see you in court!’”
“So here’s the point: If you’re trying to figure out why Stephen’s show is ending, I don’t think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives, or in CBS’s Quickbook spreadsheets on the financial health of late-night,” Stewart continued. “I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment; institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander-in-chief.”
The Trump administration settled with the University of Pennsylvania on July 1, requiring it to strip Lia Thomas, a biological male, of records and titles obtained while competing against women in NCAA swimming. CBS settled a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump over the editing of an October 2024 interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who was Trump’s opponent in the 2024 presidential election, drawing criticism from inside the company, including Colbert.
After the rant, Stewart and a choir sang a song condemning the institutions that reached deals with Trump, with multiple uses of the phrase, “Go fuck yourself.”
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