Like a battered regiment trying to gather their dwindling resources for a last stand, the late-night brigade went out to face the foe Thursday night—looking to avenge their latest casualty and inflict a little damage on the all-powerful regime. Or at least get a few laughs.
The topic of the night was Jimmy Kimmel, of course, and his shocking benching by ABC/Disney under extreme threat from a federal government wielding its unchecked power to kill a business and silence a critic. Or as Jimmy Fallon summed it up: “Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking: WTF?”
It was such a momentous occasion that Jon Stewart came flying into The Daily Show on a Thursday, like an emergency comedy ambulance, bringing with him an elaborately rendered, gold-encrusted ersatz White House set. Even bigger than that, over on CBS—truly reflecting the magnitude of the moment—Stephen Colbert brought back… Stephen Colbert.
That is, the Stephen Colbert “character” who fronted the spectacularly creative, one-of-a-kind late-night show The Colbert Report for nine years. And the faux Stephen, fully back in his blowhard glory, came bearing a special gift: one of the all-time great late-night bits, “The Word.”
Reflecting the intentions behind the Administration’s crackdown on comics whose Trump jokes they don’t laugh at (not at all), The Word last night was “Shhhh.” As in: don’t dare say bad things about the Big Guy.
Colbert had lost none of the magical timing of his delivery of the setup, while the punchlines appeared at strategic moments written under “The Word” logo:
“Yes, it’s true the words ‘Donald Trump’ do not appear in the Constitution.” (Yet) “But, ladies and gentlemen, I can say they are, because I have freedom of speech.” (While Supplies Last!)
The old Stephen was cast as the show’s “ombudsman,” modeled after the conservative recently given that title inside CBS News. The new Stephen lamented the assault on free speech evidenced by the calculated attempt to silence Kimmel—and the other late-night hosts.
Really, the unifying theme across late night Thursday night was a parody of selling out to self-censorship to placate the tyrant with access to the broadcast-license printing press.
Seth Meyers opened his monologue by declaring that it was an AI version of him that told all those jokes about Trump every night. Fallon did a monologue bit where his “usual” Trump jokes were overdubbed by a voice extolling Trump’s looks and achievements.
Jimmy reacts to ABC’s decision to suspend @JimmyKimmel after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking WTF? #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/v5wLrPEAOM
— The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) September 19, 2025
Even before his exceptional old-Stephen sketch, Colbert’s show opened with a clever parody of an animated Lumiere singing a new version of Be Our Guest, with the title Shut Your Trap and featuring lyrics like: “Don’t point out that his neck is mostly flap” and “So don’t you make a scene, or mention Jeff Epstein / Or your show will be scrapped. Shut your trap…”
Stewart made the theme of his entire first act the abject bowing and scraping to lord and master Trump, to the point of begging the audience not to laugh for fear of offending Dear Leader.
He faux denigrated New York City as a “crime-ridden cesspool that the National Guard should invade.” He praised Trump for wowing the British royals with his “legendary warmth and radiance.” He eagerly covered for Trump’s butchering of the two principals in one of the many wars he has resolved, when he called the Azerbaijan vs. Armenia war a war between “Aberbaijan and Albania.” (Wasn’t Biden ripped as an incompetent dodderer when he mistook the leader of Egypt as the leader of Mexico?)
He praised Trump—who has called every current late-night host not on Fox News “untalented guys with no rating”—for having installed a Talent-O-Meter on his desk in the White House. “It tells the President when a performer’s TQ, Talent Quotient—measured mostly by niceness to the President—goes below a certain level.” And that sets up the threats over billion-dollar mergers and the flow of “state-approved content.”
It wouldn’t be a Daily Show monologue, of course, without some perfectly researched examples of the President and his men first vowing to protect free speech from government interference, followed by precise examples of them now doing exactly those things.
The show concluded with a choir of all its correspondents singing elaborate praise to Trump, all wearing dark suits with long red ties (except Ronny Chieng, who could only find a pink one).
All the pretend fear of Trump and his FCC commissioner Brendan Carr’s intimidation was aimed at underlining their horror over the moves against Kimmel.
Somewhat surprisingly, his name was not mentioned that often, though Colbert, Fallon, and Meyers all expressed their affection and admiration for him.
Fallon: “He’s a decent, funny and loving guy.”
Meyers: “It’s a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend.”
Colbert: “I’m your host Stephen Colbert, but tonight we are all Jimmy Kimmel.”
Surely they were all raging about the threats that friend has faced this week—and the menacing threat to the nation because of the attack on the First Amendment. But they chose to find some comedy approaches to express that rage. Because that’s what they do.
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