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Chicago comedians argued on Tuesday that the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” will lead to more jokes about President Donald Trump, not fewer, in contrast with liberal critics’ concerns.
After CBS announced the left-leaning comedian’s show being canceled weeks earlier, several people ranging from commentators to lawmakers called out the move as authoritarian, suggesting CBS bent the knee to Trump after recently settling a lawsuit.
Though some believed that this could lead to either more censorship or political capitulation, comedians from the windy city, where Colbert had trained in comedy, largely believed the opposite.
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“That would go for whoever is the president,” late night host Mark Bazer told the Chicago Sun-Times. “That’s the gig. My guess is there’s very few comedians or late-night talk show hosts who are going to bend the knee.”
Bazer added that Colbert can now “take the gloves off” regarding his jokes against Trump without the pressure of maintaining his show.
“We’ve all seen late-night talk shows over the years. It’s a tradition to make fun of whoever’s in power, like, that’s what the job entails,” Bazer said.
Local comic James Dugan, who frequently performs for the Chicago improv show Whirled News Tonight, told the Chicago Sun-Times that his team largely pulls jokes from the headlines, which have heavily featured Trump recently. In fact, he described concerns about an oversaturation of Trump jokes.
“A lot of times with our show in particular, we get four or five newspapers and spread them out,” Dugan said. “And there is a little bit of a sense of like, should we take out the Trump stuff? Because people are kind of sick of hearing about it.”
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However, some comedians are still worried about what Colbert’s cancellation could mean for comedy on a larger scale.
“The fact that a sitting public official is doing so much private litigation, and that it results in this type of thing — it’s dangerous,” stand-up comic Eunji Kim told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Despite the timing of the announcement, CBS and its parent company, Paramount, have said that the cancellation was a financial decision, not a political one. Insider sources have also said that the decision was made days before Paramount’s settlement with Trump.
Colbert himself has not shied away from attacking Trump in the weeks after his show’s cancellation. Last week, he told Trump to “go f— yourself” after the latter celebrated the end of “The Late Show.”
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