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Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert has ended his 11-year run as host of The Late Show on CBS. His program’s cancellation removes one of President Trump’s most vocal critics from the airwaves and comes after the comedian criticized his own employer for agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Trump. The settlement came as CBS parent company Paramount was seeking the Trump administration’s approval for a merger with Skydance, which the Trump administration approved just one week after CBS announced Colbert’s ouster. Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr has openly gloated about the administration’s attacks on critics in the media and the defunding of outlets like PBS and NPR, which no longer receive federal money. Meanwhile, Paramount Skydance is seeking another megamerger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which would further concentrate media control in the hands of the billionaire Ellison family that has a long history of supporting Trump.

“We see this over and over again, where the Trump administration is weaponizing its power over mergers to try to get what it wants in the media space,” says David Sirota, editor-in-chief of The Lever and host of the Master Plan podcast.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman in Denver. Juan González is in Chicago.

Well, the late-night comedian Stephen Colbert signed off last night for the final time as host of The Late Show on CBS. Special guests on that final broadcast included Paul McCartney, who performed The Beatles’ classic “Hello, Goodbye,” with help from Colbert and Elvis Costello and Jon Batiste and others.

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Over the past 11 years, Stephen Colbert was one of the most vocal critics of President Trump on network TV. His show was canceled last July after he criticized CBS’s parent company Paramount for agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a $20 billion lawsuit brought by President Trump. The settlement came as Paramount was seeking the Trump FCC — that’s the Federal Communications — approval for a merger with Skydance. This is part of what Colbert said at the time.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s “big fat bribe,” because this all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s “big fat bribe,” because this all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.

AMY GOODMAN: The Trump administration approved the Paramount-Skydance merger just a week after CBS announced Colbert’s ouster. At the time, CBS [said] Colbert was canceled for, quote, “financial reasons,” even though Colbert had been consistently the top-rated late-night host.

Last year, Trump wrote online, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” unquote. Early this morning at 1:52 a.m. Eastern, President Trump posted a message online again, celebrating the end of Colbert’s show, writing, quote, “Thank goodness he’s finally gone!” unquote.

In March, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, celebrated the cancellation of Colbert’s show as part of a broader Trump-led campaign against the news media. This is Carr speaking at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action........

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