Stephen Colbert on Tucker Carlson’s firing: ‘I can’t believe I finally get to say that’
Stephen Colbert
On the eve of the writer’s strike which will shut down late-night television for the foreseeable future, Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show after a weeklong holiday to celebrate the end of Tucker Carlson’s tenure on Fox News.
“I can’t believe I finally get to say that on TV,” the elated host said. “I’ve been holding this in for a week. I feel like I’ve just had the best pee of my entire life.”
Fox News fired Carlson, the network’s most-watched host, last Monday for reasons that remain unclear, a week after the network settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5m. “So it’s not a whodunnit, it’s a whydunnit,” said Colbert. “But there are some clues.”
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Among them: text messages sent by Carlson disparaging the network’s other hosts, which were exposed by the lawsuit. In other messages, Carlson referred to a female Fox executive as a “cunt”.
“Wow, nice mouth, Tucker. You kiss your M&Ms with that mouth?” Colbert deadpanned.
Additionally, the Wall Street Journal reported that Fox executives were upset with what they felt was “thinly veiled” racism on Carlson’s show. “Thinly veiled?” Colbert exclaimed. “No wonder they were mad. Fox likes their racism cut thick, like a country bacon.”
Another theory is that Carlson’s Christian bent put him on the outs with 92-year-old Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch; according to a source, “that stuff freaks Rupert out.”
“Of course it does,” said Colbert. “I mean, listen, if I was Rupert Murdoch, I wouldn’t want to believe in hell either.”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers reacted to reports that top on-air talent at Fox News are paranoid about getting fired after Tucker Carlson’s ouster last Monday. Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, two longtime hosts who pushed Donald Trump’s election lies, have reportedly told friends they’re worried they could be canned next.
“Oh my god, it’s like a horror movie, except in this movie the ax murderer is a 92-year-old Australian man and instead of chasing his victims, he just makes them come to him,” Meyers joked.
“One thing is clear: Fox definitely seems like an insane place to work,” as the network reportedly kept dossiers on their anchors, including Carlson. “That’s insane,” said Meyers. “They keep files full of damaging information and use it against you later as blackmail. Not only does NBC not have a file on me, they don’t even know what I do here.”
Meyers also touched on the likely rematch between Joe Biden and Trump for the 2024 presidential election, which is not popular with voters. According to one MSNBC poll, 70% of voters think Biden should not run for re-election, while 60% of Republican voters feel the same about Trump.
“At this point, the Biden-Trump rematch just feels like your six-month trip to the dentist,” said Meyers. “Like when they ask you when you want to come back, you want to say never, but you know you just have to pick a random Tuesday in November and get it over with.”
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Jimmy Kimmel
In Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel looked ahead to Trump’s scheduled town hall event in New Hampshire next week, which will be broadcast on CNN. The event “has to be a real punch in the truck nuts for Fox News”, he said, noting that the former president hasn’t appeared on CNN since before the election in 2016.
“What a week for CNN – they dropped a lemon and added an orange to their lineup,” Kimmel joked, referring to the network’s firing of longtime star anchor Don Lemon last Monday.
According to reports, Lemon and Carlson began texting after they were fired on the same day. “They’re having their own little ‘we got fired’ fest on text,” said Kimmel. “This is like when your two angry exes form an alliance – no good can come from it at all.”
“I just want to say congratulations to Tucker Carlson on making his first black friend,” he quipped.
The Daily Show
"If that s**t happened to me, forget playing basketball overseas, I wouldn't even WATCH basketball" @dulcesloan on Brittney Griner pic.twitter.com/TGx6WyqND6
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) May 2, 2023
And on The Daily Show, guest host Dulcé Sloan focused on a “sports comeback story”. “And I’m talking about a real comeback,” she said, “none of this ‘we were shit for 20 years but now we’re in the playoffs’ bullshit. You know what, call me when you get a ring, OK?”
That comeback would be the return of WNBA star Brittney Griner after a 10-month detention in a Russian gulag for possession of marijuana. In her first public comments since her return to the US in a prisoner swap in December, Griner said she would never play basketball overseas again. “I feel you, sis,” said Sloan. “If that shit happened to me, I wouldn’t play basketball anywhere. Not in America, not in my backyard, I wouldn’t even watch basketball. I’d become the first black woman to watch hockey.
“She went to Russia to play basketball and she ended up in jail,” Sloan continued. “Staying out of jail is the reason Black people started playing basketball in the first place! I don’t even know if we like it!”
Sloan said she understood where Griner was coming from, “and I know people are saying ‘how can she never travel again?’ And those people? Are white.”