When Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show,” announced that CBS/Paramount had canceled the program, many critics of President Donald Trump argued that he had succeeded in silencing an outspoken critic. Paramount defended the cancelation as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” But according to LateNighter.com, “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” topped the Nielsen ratings during that time slot and averaged 2.4 million viewers during 2025’s second quarter.
In a biting late July column for The Guardian, liberal economist Robert Reich warns that Trump is not only waging a campaign to silence critics in the media — he is succeeding, from “The Late Show’s” cancelation to Amazon owner Jeff Bezos self-censoring at the Washington Post.
Reich notes that Bezos, during the 2024 presidential race, infamously killed a Post editorial endorsing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris — and that on Tuesday, July 29, the Post’s Eduardo Porter announced that his column was ending and said, in an e-mail, “Jeff Bezos and his new head of Opinion are taking the paper down a path I cannot follow.” Never Trumper Jennifer Rubin also resigned as a Post columnist, arguing that one-time Trump critic Bezos was making bad editorial decisions out of fear of the president.
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“Bezos stopped the Post from endorsing Kamala Harris,” Reich laments. “Amazon made a huge contribution to Trump’s inauguration. And he stood in front of Trump at the president’s swearing in. Why? Because Bezos has founded a bunch of mega-corporations, including Amazon, that depend on Trump’s goodwill and could be in deep trouble if Trump decided to retaliate against Bezos. It’s much the same story with Stephen Colbert, longtime host of CBS’ ‘The Late Show ‘and the top-rated late-night talk show host in the U.S.”
Reich continues, “On 14 July, Colbert openly criticized CBS’ parent company, Paramount, for its $16m settlement with Trump over his frivolous lawsuit over the routine editing of a ’60 Minutes’ interview with Kamala Harris that Trump claimed gave her an unfair advantage in the 2024 election.”
Reich stresses that CBS/Paramount and Bezos’ decisions are only a few examples of Trump’s ability to silence criticism.
“Let’s be clear: Bezos has silenced any criticism of Trump on the editorial pages of the Washington Post because Bezos fears Trump’s wrath,” Reich warns. “CBS and its parent corporation, Paramount, have silenced criticism of Trump on Colbert’s hugely popular late-night show because its top corporate brass fears Trump’s wrath. The new owner of CBS has agreed to some federal interference in the content of what it produces because he fears Trump’s wrath.”
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Reich continues, “It’s the same with American universities, whose professors have often criticized Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions and whose research has often yielded conclusions that contradict Trump’s lies, such as that climate change is a ‘hoax.’ Columbia University and a handful of others have gone out of their way to ‘cooperate’ with the Trump regime in order to avoid Trump’s wrath. What does ‘cooperation’ entail? Silencing Trump’s potential critics.”
Reich warns, however, that placating Trump will only make him more “dangerous.”
“Friends, this is how democracy dies,” the economist/Guardian columnist laments. “The silencing is happening across America because Trump cannot stand criticism, because he’s vindictive as hell, and because he’s willing and able to use every department and agency of the federal government to punish any media corporations or universities that allow criticism of him.”
Reich adds, “Shame on any media outlet or university that allows Trump to silence it. Trump is a dangerous despot. America needs its Eduardo Porters, Stephen Colberts, and all others in the media and in academia who have helped the nation understand just how truly dangerous Trump is.”
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Robert Reich’s full column for The Guardian is available at this link.