All posts tagged "stephen colbert"

'They’re lying weasels': Legendary comedian goes after MAGA-fied CBS

David Letterman shot down claims from CBS amid its MAGA makeover that "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" is slated to end over financial reasons, TMZ reported on Tuesday.

The legendary comedian told The New York Times that he was in "disbelief" when he found out that "The Late Show," which Letterman helped create and formerly hosted, was ending.

"Then I wondered: What the hell have they done to Stephen [Colbert]? And I would say farther down on the list is your point: Wait a minute, this used to be my show. It’s like driving by your old neighborhood and realizing that where you used to live, they’re putting up an adult bookstore," Letterman told The Times.

CBS has maintained that the move to cut the show was due to financial decisions. But Letterman disagreed, saying the Ellison family's sale to Skydance Media used Colbert as a bargaining chip.

"He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, 'Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?' I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They’re lying weasels," Letterman added.

Trump's fervent obsession lifts the veil on a grim reality

Stephen Colbert joked that Donald Trump wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about him on television because “all Trump does is watch TV.” It was a punchline, but it also revealed something darker: when political power becomes obsessed with controlling the screen, the most effective way to silence dissent isn’t through raids or arrests. It’s through ownership.

In today’s America, the battle over free speech isn’t happening in courtrooms, it’s happening in quiet White House dinners with greedy billionaires. And it’s following an old script.

When Viktor Orbán — the Hungarian strongman who Marco Rubio visited this past weekend to tell him how much Trump loves him and supports him — wanted to crush opposition media in his country he didn’t need police, courts, regulatory agencies, or even threats. He didn’t even need the Hungarian mafia to break the knees of Budapest media owners or threaten reporters.

Orbán simply invited a few morbidly rich Hungarian oligarchs over for dinner and told them that if they’d buy out the big media outlets and spin the news in his favor, he’d make sure their government contracts and business opportunities in other non-media areas would more than compensate them for their hassle and expenses.

Orbán let Republicans in on the strategy in May 2022, when he spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest and told the American Republican crowd:

“Have your own media. It’s the only way to point out the insanity of the progressive left.”

It’s a pretty straightforward business proposition that we see Trump embracing right now: “Give me good media coverage and I’ll make you additional billions; use your media to crap on me and I’ll have the FCC harass you and my billionaire friends buy you out.”

And, sure enough, check how it’s working out for the non-media companies (rockets, AI, data, web services, etc.) owned by media moguls Elon Musk (Twitter/X), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta/Facebook), Larry Ellison (Paramount/CBS/TikTok), and Jeff Bezos (Washington Post) that now get hundreds of billions of dollars every year in contracts from the federal government. No doubt it’s just a coincidence that their media outlets have all become cheerleaders for Trump.

Putin did the same thing in Russia, and the media in most other autocratic nations is similarly all or mostly owned by regime-friendly oligarchs on similar terms.

This model, pioneered in Germany in the 1930s, is now used to keep in power strongman regimes in the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, India, Brazil, the Philippines, Colombia, Tunisia, Turkey, Peru, and Ghana, among dozens of others. It’s rapidly spreading across the world.

It’s produced headlines like these:

And now, here in the United States:

To be fair, Republicans didn’t just suddenly adopt this strategy when Orbán suggested it to them. They’ve been doing it since the days of Ronald Reagan; it just went on steroids with Trump.

We used to have laws and rules to prevent this sort of thing. But in 1985, Reagan greased the skids for Rupert Murdoch to become a citizen so he could buy US media outlets. In 1987 Reagan repealed the Fairness Doctrine, and in 1988 Rush Limbaugh debuted on 56 major radio stations.

In 1996, Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act, overturning laws dating back to the 1920s that prevented any one oligarch or company from owning multiple newspapers or radio or TV stations, leading to an explosive consolidation that today gives us 1,500 oligarch-owned rightwing radio stations and hundreds of rightwing oligarch-owned TV stations across the nation.

Republican screams of a “liberal media” dating back to the 1980s notwithstanding, there isn’t a place in America where you can’t get a large daily dose of pro-fascist, pro-Trump media. Drive from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the Canadian border to the edge of Mexico, and you’ll never be without a rightwing radio companion telling you how wonderful Trump, Vance, Putin, et al are.

As Colbert joked this week:

“Let’s just call this what it is: Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV.”

And now, Matt Stoller is reporting that the Ellisons — who now own CBS — have a “secret plan” to acquire CNN as well, a goal that Trump has explicitly and publicly gushed about. As the network itself reported, Trump said, “It’s imperative that CNN be sold” and David Ellison recently “offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he’d make sweeping changes to CNN.”

But the Putin/Orbán/Trump strategy to end all media independence in America may be facing headwinds if Democrats can take control of the House, Senate, or both this fall.

Axios and Raw Story report that:

“DC insiders and partners Matthew Miller and Tucker Eskew have issued warnings that Democrats will aggressively pursue corruption allegations against the president and Trump administration officials.”

Miller and Eskew added:

“The subpoenas are coming. The only question is whether companies will be ready.”

State attorneys general also have real power over media concentration. In 2015 a coalition of state AGs joined federal regulators in challenging Comcast’s proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable, and Comcast abandoned the merger rather than face trial.

In 2018 several state attorneys general urged regulators to block Sinclair Broadcast Group’s acquisition of Tribune Media, after which the FCC moved to reject the deal and it collapsed. And in 2019, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Virginia attorneys general sued to limit Nexstar’s purchase of Tribune stations, forcing major divestitures before the merger could proceed. History shows that when states intervene, consolidation often fails or is dramatically reduced.

Citizen activism has also repeatedly changed the behavior of partisan media without any hint of government involvement or censorship. For example, after the 2012 Limbaugh Sandra Fluke controversy, dozens of national advertisers left his program and many never returned.

And following Trump’s January 6 attack on our Capitol, advertiser boycotts and viewer pressure led companies to suspend advertising on certain Fox News opinion programs, and several cable carriers reconsidered their carriage agreements. Organized brand-safety campaigns have also pushed social media platforms to demonetize rightwing and fascist extremist content.

In each case the speech itself remained “legal,” but because of public outrage the economic incentives changed, showing how average citizens in a market-based democracy can reshape media behavior by influencing the revenue that sustains it.

If ever there was a time ripe for revisiting the laws and rules that gave us the relatively unbiased media landscape — that vigorously supported American democracy — between the 1930s and the 1980s, it’s now. And the same is true of the immediate need for citizen activism, like we saw in awake of Trump’s attempt to use pressure on media owners to silence Jimmy Kimmel.

Hopefully, Democratic politicians and citizen activists are paying attention, because the crisis — and the opportunity — has never been more urgent.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

Panicking Trump proves he sees a real threat

The pattern is clear: Corporate billionaires who either own or are purchasing U.S. media are censoring content to support Donald Trump. Trump’s blatantly illegal carrot is the conditioning of federal contracts, mergers, licensing, tax and regulatory relief on partisan fealty. His stick? Threatening the FCC licenses of networks that criticize him.

In January, singling out left-leaning shows like Saturday Night Live, The View, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, Trump’s FCC Chairman Brendan Carr resurrected a long dormant “equal time” policy to issue new regulatory guidance requiring these shows to give “equal time” to political candidates in an election period. The rule was originally adopted in 1934, but the shows Carr is now targeting had been subject to a “news” exemption since 1959.

Despite declaring that the new regulations apply to shows “motivated by partisan purposes,” Carr is not applying them to Fox News, a blended news and entertainment network that runs 24/7 Trump propaganda. Nor is he applying them to uber-partisan right-wing talk radio, which the FCC also regulates. Instead, Carr is focusing on what he calls “left-leaning” entertainment programming.

Selective application of federal communication rules based on partisan leanings obviously violates the First Amendment. While networks could sue the FCC on First Amendment and misuse of administrative authority grounds, whether the Roberts court would rule in time for it to matter is another question.

FCC targets Talarico

On Monday, after either the FCC or corporate-owned CBS threatened legal repercussions if Stephen Colbert aired an interview with James Talarico, a Texas Democrat running for U.S. Senate, the taped interview was removed from the show. Whether CBS was directed to pull the interview or bent the knee in advance has been the subject of debate, but it’s clear the Trump administration grew concerned about Talarico in particular after he appeared on The View in early February.

Talarico, a Texas state representative, is a deeply religious Democratic lawmaker making waves with MAGA’s religious hypocrisy. He looks like a southern Baptist preacher but he sounds like a true man of faith. Taking on Trump’s far-right base, Talarico rails about the shameful gulf between the teachings of Christ and the suffering Trump is inflicting throughout the country and around the world.

A Presbyterian seminarian, Talarico has gained national attention for using his theological background to criticize Chrisian nationalism, condemning it as a “betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth,” that “worships power in the name of Christ.”

Talarico: It’s time to start flipping tables

Talarico relies on the teachings of Christ to challenge corporate interests.

He identifies the right vs. left political divide in the U.S. as deliberately orchestrated, while the true divide is top wealth vs. bottom, saying, “Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other instead of looking up at them while they pick our pockets.” The Trump oligarchy divides us “so we don’t notice they’re defunding our schools, gutting our healthcare, and cutting taxes for themselves and their rich friends. It’s the oldest strategy in the world: divide and conquer.”

He also argues that the separation of church and state protects religion by maintaining the church’s ability to speak truth to power. His opposition to a Ten Commandments bill went viral: “Maybe they should try following the Ten Commandments before mandating them.” He calls school vouchers, which move education dollars from public to corporate-owned schools, “schemes,” scams, and “welfare for the rich.”

Trump’s FCC mocks Equal Time

The equal opportunity section (315) of the Communications Act of 1934 was a good idea. It was adopted to further First Amendment freedoms by requiring all broadcast licensees to give equal coverage to all legally qualified candidates for political office.

It tracked with the Fairness Doctrine, which required, when a political opinion was aired, that both sides be presented. The Fairness doctrine was repealed under Ronald Reagan in 1987, and our country has grown more divided ever since.

The irony in watching Carr resurrect “fairness” is that Republicans have long opposed fairness in the media; the Heritage Foundation railed against the Fairness Doctrine in 1993, arguing that requiring both sides of a political argument violated free speech. Watching Carr now apply “equal time” to left-leaning talk shows while exempting right wing views makes a mockery of fairness principles that drove the law in the first place.

Giving Talarico the last word

During an interview, Joe Rogan told Talarico he should run for president. That spells escalating attempts to censor him from Trump’s FCC, so he gets the last word.

During Colbert’s interview with Talarico, which aired on YouTube, Talarico noted that the right is now “trying to control what we watch, what we say, and what we read. This is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top. A threat to one of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights."

On his campaign website, Talarico writes about a barefoot rabbi who issued two overriding commandments: love God, and love your neighbor, “because there is no love of God without love of neighbor.”

“Every single person bears the image of the sacred; every single person is holy — not just the neighbors who look like me or pray like me or vote like me. 2,000 years ago, when the powerful few rigged the system, that barefoot rabbi walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice. To those who love our country, to those who love our neighbors: It’s time to start flipping tables.”

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump's dumb move just handed Dems a massive gift — again

Donald Trump is the worst thing to ever happen to global politics, but he didn’t get there by himself. Putin’s occasionally useful puppet also happens to be surrounded by the most inept collection of political non-savants ever assembled.

Case in point: When the COVID-19 pandemic began in February 2020, Trump secretly told writer Bob “My Publishing Date is More Important Than American Lives” Woodward how serious the virus was, but seemed to forget that minor detail every time he spoke to the public. Weird!

If Trump had been any kind of competent person, or at least had surrounded himself with competent people instead of attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci on the daily, he would have recognized the coronavirus as the political gift it was in an election year. Trump needed only to embrace measures to stop the spread and he would have —to quote Bill Murray — saved the lives of millions of registered voters.

Instead, he killed off his own voting base in the Red States. And since the surviving MAGA cultists weren’t inclined to vote by mail after he convinced them it wasn’t safe, Trump lost bigly to Joe Biden.

I don’t have enough internet space to list all the mistakes Trump has made that could have been avoided, so let’s just fast forward to Monday night, when Bari Weiss’s spineless Trumpsimps at CBS wouldn’t allow Stephen Colbert’s interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico to air.

We all — including the crack legal staff at CBS, all of whom apparently just graduated from Trump University’s Bondi School of Law — know Trump is very worried about Texas going purple.

Instead of obeying in advance, the smart thing for CBS would have been to invoke the Fairness Doctrine and get a Republican booked too. Of course, Colbert would probably have requested Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the only sensible Republican in the House, but would have had to settle for someone super-Trumpy yet vaguely Talarico-esque, say Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), who’s joined performative, attention-seeking Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in pretending Trump’s name isn’t in the Epstein Files more than a million times.

The best part of this is how beautifully Colbert handled the latest bit of Orwellian FCC-ery from Trumpocrite Brendan Carr, who basically helped Streisand Effect the entire Talarico interview.

Yes, this Brendan Carr. I wonder what’s changed since he tweeted this in 2019?

Anyway, Colbert got to tell his audience the network wouldn’t let him air the Talarico interview, and to drag Trump and his protectors on the same episode they were censoring. Yay, First Amendment still in effect!

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Even better, the interview with Talarico has racked up far more views on Colbert’s YouTube Channel (over 6 million at the time of this writing, so probably at least 2 million more by the time you read this) than it would’ve if guarding Trump’s snowflake feelings wasn’t CBS’s top priority.

- YouTube youtu.be

But wait, it gets even better!

Thanks to Trump being a giant baby, Talarico’s campaign raised a whopping $2.5 million after the news broke. I’m encouraged to see that Americans are reacting appropriately to censorship and the deliberate deterioration of our First Amendment rights.

Yes, Bari Weiss of CBS follows me on Twitter. No, I don’t follow her back, and she’s never responded to me. Weird, huh? Especially since Trump blocked me forever ago, in August 2015.

If Weiss had any real sense of how to run a news network, she would offer me a gig, representing the liberal take. But again, anyone connected to Trump is terrible at whatever they do. There’s a part of me that wishes they were trying to take him down from the inside, but none are smart enough to maintain a front like that for too long.

As someone who comes from terrestrial radio, my biggest fear about the second Trump Regime arose from its intention to control the flow of information on our airwaves, as laid out in Project 2025. Now we have Carr’s Federal Communications Commission nestled in Trump’s alimentary canal, more than willing to suppress truths Trump doesn’t like.

But don’t forget Kari Lake, who’s filtering all of the truth out of the Voice of America even more than she filters her face. I’m blocked on Twitter by both her personal account and her “Kari Lake War Room.” You know, because she’s so brave and cares so much about the truth — which I suggest is that whatever she sends out from the Voice of America is translated from the Russian first.

We have the First Amendment for so many reasons. If you don’t want to watch something or listen to it, you don’t have to. Unless you’re this giant snowflake baby, then you block some five-foot-nothing lady on Twitter because you can’t handle the truth she tells about you being a convicted felon accused of doing unspeakable things to women and children.

The irony of this kind of censorship happening in 2026 is that there’s more content available now than at any other time in our history. If you don’t want to see Stephen Colbert and James Talarico chatting about politics and their shared faith, just change the channel. It’s that part that really chaps MAGA’s collective IQ point. Those Trumpocrites think they’re the only ones who get to be churchy. But that’s a whole other kind of opinion column.

Tara Dublin is a political writer/commentator based in Portland, OR, who has been blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter since August 2015 and can occasionally be heard as a fill-in host on SiriusXM Progress. She is also the author of The Sound of Settling, a rock ‘n’ roll love story available at taradublinrocks.com

Stephen Colbert slams 'maniacal criminality' of Trump as he asks one big question

Stephen Colbert has ripped into Donald Trump, calling the president's first year in office one scattered with "maniacal criminality."

The talk show host slammed Trump's long list of White House activities from 2025 to 2026, from the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the demolition of the East Wing. But it is all noise to distract from a much larger and ongoing issue, Colbert says. The Late Show host, who will host his final episode in May 2026, grilled Trump for signing an order his government is now ignoring.

Following a clip package of Trump's controversial decisions during the first year of his second term in office, Colbert said, "You didn't remember most of that stuff, because every single day there's some new Trump horror dominating the headlines.

"Case in point, Trump invaded Venezuela a couple weeks ago, seized their leader, and brought him to Brooklyn. And absolutely nobody is talking about it, not even me, that's f***ing weird.

"It's probably the whole point. Today's maniacal criminality distracts us from yesterday's maniac crimes, which reminds me, where are the Epstein files? Nothing yet? Really? It's the law. You signed it. Just checking."

Colbert went on to call the last year "exhausting" but, as many other political commentators have done in recent weeks, put pressure on the Trump administration to continue releasing the Epstein files.

According to some House Republicans, the efforts made to get the Epstein files released have since been abandoned or, at the very least, delayed. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), one of the first House Republicans to demand disclosure, expressed indifference when asked about the DOJ's non-compliance.

She said, "I don't give a rip about Epstein. Like, there's so many other things we need to be working on. I've done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It's no longer in my hands."

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), previously outspoken about demanding complete file release, has shifted to defending the DOJ. She characterized the December 19 deadline as unrealistic and stated, "I'm not going to rush the process on that—we're going to get them."

'Obey or die': Stephen Colbert denounces ICE Minneapolis shooting and rages at Trump

Stephen Colbert has denounced the recent ICE shooting in Minneapolis and says Donald Trump's administration are operating on "obey or die" rules.

Speaking during the opening monologue of The Late Show, Colbert criticised the response to the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother who was shot and killed by an ICE agent. ICE raids have surged as Donald Trump's administration ordered more than 2,000 federal immigration officers into the city following reports of welfare fraud committed by the local Somali community.

Colbert said, "The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth, and when their forces come to your city, obey or die, and if you die, you clearly didn't obey."

"This should be an alarm bell for the entire country, whether you're in a red state or a blue state, because, if we let this go on, regardless of who your state voted for, one day, you'll have unaccountable, armed, government agents acting with impunity in your town."

Colbert went on to call for people to "peacefully and non-violently let your leaders know you don't want that." His comments on the government and their response to the shooting of Renee Good join that of fellow talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and ex-GOP representative Adam Kinzinger.

Kimmel was horrified by the rhetoric of Kristi Noem in particular, with her statement dubbed "an insult to Renee Good".

He said, ""Our Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, said it was an act of domestic terrorism, which is just flat out- this unarmed mom, a devout Christian by the way, who had no criminal record, driving a Honda Pilot, trying to get away from armed men in masks, masked men were screaming at her."

"We're to believe this woman was a terrorist, committing a terrorist act? And the fact that ICE shot through her windshield three times, that was her fault? The ICE officer was, as Kristi Noem put it, 'following his training'."

"How stupid do you think we are? That's not just an insult to Renee Good, that's an insult to every law enforcement everywhere. They're not trained to do that."

'Nobody saw that': Stephen Colbert ridicules Trump over woeful Kennedy Center update

Stephen Colbert has ridiculed Donald Trump after viewing figures for the president's Kennedy Center Honors were released.

The Late Show host, who has appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors show in the past, jokingly bragged about the viewership of previous awards ceremonies and noted Trump's reached an all-time low. CBS confirmed last year's event, which was hosted by the president, gave the network some of its lowest viewing figures for the Kennedy Center Honors.

Colbert said, "This year's Kennedy Center Honors drew an all-time low viewership on CBS, with host Donald Trump. Nobody saw that coming. I'm sorry, I read that wrong, nobody saw that. The president managed to draw only three million on CBS."

"Now, it is beneath me to gloat, but if it weren't beneath me, I'd call him 'no-talent, low-rated Donald Trump'." The "no-talent, low-rated" comment comes just a month after Trump had called Colbert a "talentless" show host.

He fumed in a Truth Social post, "Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck, with no talent or anything else necessary for show business success. Now, after being terminated by CBS, but left out to dry, he has actually gotten worse, along with his nonexistent ratings. I see why he said that, that felt good."

"Stephen is running on hatred and fumes - a dead man walking! CBS should, 'put him to sleep,' NOW, it is the humanitarian thing to do!" Colbert seems to have gotten one over on the president, comparing Trump's three million views to his own Kennedy Center Honors support.

Colbert has hosted the event in the past, with his impressive viewing figures shared on The Late Show. The host said, "Maybe we should cut the guy some slack, after all it was just his first year hosting. As a former Kennedy Center host myself, I know it can take a while to build an audience."

"What were my ratings my first year? 9.25million viewers. What? 9.25million viewers. Wow, what do you know, three times as many and I didn't even name the building after myself."

'Here's the kicker': Stephen Colbert highlights hurdle to Trump surviving Epstein dump

Stephen Colbert highlighted how President Donald Trump's next hurdle will be surviving the upcoming Jeffrey Epstein file dump Friday — and he thinks Trump could be out of luck this time.

The Late Show host dropped a monologue about the upcoming deadline on Thursday night, just hours before the Department of Justice is set to release the long awaited files.

“It’s Epstein Files Eve,” Colbert said. “Don’t forget to leave Santa some cookies. And a barf bag.”

Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was unanimously approved by Congress, the DOJ has until midnight local time in Washington, D.C. to release the anticipated materials.

“The DOJ specifically has to release ‘searchable and downloadable’ copies,'” Colbert said, quoting a CNN report.

“And here’s the kicker: The law says records can’t be withheld, delayed, or redacted due to concerns about embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity,” he added.

Colbert joked that Trump could do what he's used to doing: blame Joe Biden.

“You can see the end is in sight, which is crazy because you’ve always believed that nothing bad could ever happen to you because the world’s an illusion and you’re the only one that’s real," Colbert said.

Stephen Colbert pushes Paramount to 'uncancel its best show' amid Warner Bros. bid

Talk show host Stephen Colbert has called on the parent company of The Late Show, Paramount, to "uncancel one of its best shows".

Colbert's tongue-in-cheek knock at both Paramount and Donald Trump came during the opening monologue of The Late Show, where the 61-year-old seemed to acknowledge the pending finale of his own programme. The Late Show, which Colbert has hosted since 2015 after David Letterman's retirement, will come to an end in May 2026.

The Late Show as a whole, not just Colbert's decade-long reign as host, will come to an end next year. The decision to end the show was roundly criticised by other talk show hosts, such as Jimmy Kimmel who called the reasons for cancellation "nonsensical".

A cancellation order was passed on July 17, with some believing high production costs and declining advertising revenue is part of the reasons for ending the show. But it has been reported that a settlement agreement reached between Donald Trump and Paramount also affected the show's chances of survival.

A statement from Paramount released shortly after the cancellation reads, "Our admiration, affection, and respect for the talents of Stephen Colbert and his incredible team made this agonizing decision even more difficult. With much gratitude, we look forward to honoring Stephen and celebrating the show over the next 10 months alongside its millions of fans and viewers."

Colbert has not taken the news of The Late Show's cancellation lying down, either, with the talk show host using his opening monologue to criticise the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Bros.

He said, "Wow. I've got to say, if my company has got that kind of green, I'm sure they can afford to uncancel one of their best shows." After a pause for applause, Colbert added, "Thank you, thank you, please, please have a seat everybody. CBS you heard the people, bring back The Equalizer. We need our Queen to return. Why do you think America has become so unequalized?"