During an interview over the summer on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show with CNN host Kailtan Collins, the live audience burst into laughter when the host suggested that the left-leaning news network reports on the news with integrity and objectivity. The incident, which was not a scripted laugh line, caught both Colbert and Collins off guard.
Speaking about Donald Trump’s campaign strategy, Collins told Colbert, “Trump has kind of been thrown on his heels by this, and he’s not really sure how to go after Vice President Harris. He knew his attack lines on President Biden. He really has struggled with how to how to go after someone who’s 20 years younger than him, who is a different gender, a different race. It’s kind of been this moment where he has not been able to coalesce around a single attack line.”
Colbert then claimed, “I know you guys are objective over there that you just report the news as it is,” before the studio audience erupted in laughter, interrupting the conversation between him and Collins. The two looked at each other in bewilderment showing that the reaction was entirely unanticipated. “Oh, I know CNN makes it…” Colbert said in surprise. Collins, appearing to be shocked, asked “Was that supposed to be a laugh line?”
Colbert replied, “It wasn’t supposed to be, but I guess it is.” Quickly moving on from the incident, Colbert changed the topic to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, which was a relatively recent development at the time. “What I wanted to ask is that you guys still have your own feelings, your own bets about what’s going to happen on a daily basis. Did you think that Biden was going to step down? Did that take everybody over to CNN by surprise?”
Sharing a clip of the incident on X, conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong said, “Stephen Colbert’s audience exploded into laughter when Colbert said, stone-faced, that CNN objectively reports the news. Kaitlan Collins asked: “Is that supposed to be a laugh line?” to which Colbert replied, “No.” Ouch. CNN has lost all credibility, even among liberals.”
The American Tribune reported on other commentary highlighting that the American people have increasingly come to distrust the mainstream media to report the news without bias. Journalist Mark Halperin recently said on a panel , “The very same executives and producers, anchors and correspondence and writers who covered and participated in the cover-up of the Biden decline, and then after the decline had to be exposed and acknowledged, never acknowledged their role in it.
He continued, “All those people are covering the Trump administration, they also covered the campaign. I don’t understand how they think that they can cover the Trump campaign fairly, or Trump administration fairly, or be seen as covering the Trump administration fairly.” He added, “If they don’t acknowledge their role in the conspiracy and their failure to acknowledge it…. just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Watch the incident on Colbert’s late-night show below below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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