There’s been a lot of talk lately about the fate of… well, a whole fucking lot of things, many of them of critical and life-threatening importance. But also: Late-night TV! After all, CBS just canceled Stephen Colbert’s Late Show over the financial problems facing the chat show niche—and for no other reason—suggesting that not even the highest-rated network talk show can run profitably in the current climate. But don’t we turn to late-night talk for more than just money and ad sales? Isn’t it our national water cooler? A TV destination where we can all lighten up, have a little fun, and listen to the most recent Democratic candidate for president tell us that America’s systems and institutions are now so fundamentally broken that she can’t even be bothered to muster up an easy slam-dunk run for governor of California?
This cheerful little reminder brought to you by former Vice President Kamala Harris, who stopped by Colbert’s couch for her first interview since the 2024 election earlier tonight. Harris has got a new book to hawk, of course, but she also popped by to spread a little political, uh, cheer, quickly shooting down the obvious question about whether her recent statement about not running for governor of California was part of the lead-up to a 2028 run at the Oval Office. “Nah” is the current party line, apparently, as Harris went on to say that she’s spent her political life operating inside the system, and now views the whole thing as so thoroughly compromised that she can no longer bring herself to toss her bones back into the machine. “I always believed that, as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles,” she said with obvious emotion. “And I think right now that they’re not as strong as they need to be.” When Colbert suggested that Harris’ judgment of the situation is “harrowing,” she fired back quickly with, “But it’s also evident, isn’t it?” (Harris did push back on the idea that she was giving up, but stated her desire to operate outside politics for a bit, traveling across America and learning about people’s problems in a “non-transactional” way where she wasn’t hunting for anyone’s vote. She makes it sound a bit like the old Incredible Hulk TV show, honestly.)
So, yeah, never let anyone tell you that late-night TV isn’t still the place to go to let your hair down and have a little fun! The current clip of Harris’ interview with Colbert is circulating on social media right now, ahead of a full conversation on the Late Show tonight. God help us if some poor beleaguered CBS editor removes even a second of footage from either, thus irreparably harming Donald Trump again; Paramount’s presumably only got so much “settlement money” left to throw around.
