By Bobby Burack

Copyright outkick

The National Security Advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term was invited on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert in 2024, but on one condition: he had to tell the audience not to vote for Trump. “When my book ‘At War With Ourselves’ came out, my publicist said, ‘Hey, you know, the Stephen Colbert show said you could come on, but only if you condemn President Trump and tell people not to vote for him,’” Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster said on the GoodFellows podcast this week. McMaster said he turned down the invitation immediately. “I don’t know if it was a producer or Colbert himself, but there’s been an orthodoxy that’s taken hold of late-night television. So many of these monologues, honestly, are just diatribes. They’re not funny. Which might explain why the ratings are dropping.” McMaster is unlikely the only guest to have faced such conditions. A recent NewsBusters study found that since the start of 2025, 99% of late-night guests were “left-leaning”. Among partisan officials, the tally was 30 Democrats and zero Republicans. Imagine if a conservative host demanded that a liberal guest bash Joe Biden or Kamala Harris before coming on. Media figures like Brian Stelter would demand accountability. Yet McMaster’s story will likely go ignored — just as many outlets ignored news that Google admitted that they received pressure from the Biden administration to censor content. This is all such a rigged carnival. The past week, following Jimmy Kimmel’s short-lived suspension, proves that. But ultimately, Colbert and Kimmel have hurt themselves the most by engaging in petty partisan politics. While both decided to wave goodbye to half the country, moderate and right-leaning viewers waved right back. Each has lost nearly half its audience since the pandemic. CBS says Colbert’s show, ending in May 2026, loses around $40 million a year. Kimmel averaged 30% fewer viewers than Colbert and likely loses just as much. No one expects Colbert or Kimmel to echo the late Rush Limbaugh. However, blacklisting conservative guests – unless they’re willing to denounce Trump – is bad business. It’s why, aside from headlines about cancellations or suspensions, Colbert and Kimmel are close to irrelevant. They dug their own graves.