On Monday’s “The Late Present,” Stephen Colbert marked his return from summer time hiatus by denouncing the $16 million settlement Paramount reached with Donald Trump, declaring the deal to be a “massive fats bribe” to win approval for the corporate’s merger with Skydance Media.
“Whereas I used to be on trip, my mum or dad company Paramount paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his 60 Minutes lawsuit,” Colbert stated throughout his monologue, including, “as somebody who has all the time been a proud worker of this community. I’m offended, and I don’t know if something will ever restore my belief on this firm. However simply taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would assist.”
Colbert defined that the fee settled Trump’s “nuisance lawsuit” based mostly on the false declare that CBS-produced “60 Minutes” misleading edited footage from its interview final fall with then-Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. As Colbert famous, Paramount’s assertion on the settlement even declared that lawsuit to be “utterly with out advantage.”
“And take note, Paramount produced ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.’ They know ‘utterly with out advantage,’” he joked.
‘Now, in contrast to, in contrast to the payoffs from ABC and Twitter,” Colbert stated, referencing earlier funds to settle a few of Trump’s different lawsuits, “Paramount’s settlement didn’t embrace an apology — that’s good.”
“As a substitute,” Colbert continued as he arrange one other joke, “the company launched an announcement the place they stated, ‘You could take our cash, however you’ll by no means take our dignity. You could, nonetheless, buy our dignity for the low, low worth of $16 million. We want the money.’”
The Colbert laid into Paramount extra pointedly. “Now, I imagine this sort of difficult monetary settlement with a sitting authorities official has a technical title in authorized circles: It’s massive fats bribe,” he stated, “as a result of this all comes as Paramount homeowners are attempting to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our community to a brand new proprietor, Skydance.”
At this, Colbert began dancing glibly to mock the title “Skydance.”
Watch the clip beneath:
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