Overview
- The Obama–Colbert interview, which aired Tuesday on CBS, featured Obama urging a return to basic norms and warning against using the Justice Department to target political rivals.
- After the broadcast, Sen. John Kennedy ridiculed the friendly tone, saying they should “get a motel room” and calling Colbert vain and “shallow as a puddle.”
- Kennedy also claimed Colbert cost CBS $40 million a year and said the network fired him, a narrative at odds with CBS’s explanation that the cancellation was a financial decision.
- Reports conflict on the finale date, with Fox News citing May 16 and Mediaite and HuffPost pointing to May 21.
- The sit-down was taped at Obama’s new Presidential Center in Chicago, as Colbert continues to suggest without proof that politics may have influenced CBS’s move while the network cites late-night’s weakening economics.