How Did Late-Night Get So Political? It Didn’t Start With Trump
The hosts’ monologues may feel especially pointed right now, but the trend really took off during the George W. Bush administration before the Iraq war.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/a...e=articleShare
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But searching for Jimmy Kimmel’s road to Damascus moment will only get you so far. The political shift of late-night television — and Kimmel — began with the influential program that followed “The Man Show” on Comedy Central: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Of course, there had been popular political comedy on late night before Stewart — from contentious episodes of “The Dick Cavett Show” in the 1960s and ’70s to Bill Maher’s “Politically Incorrect” in the ’90s (which aired on ABC and was replaced by, wait for it, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”). But Stewart’s success gave birth to an entirely new genre of righteous comedy. He didn’t just comment on the news. For many, he provided a substitute news source.
Stewart cultivated a staff of correspondents (John Oliver, Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert, among others) that became a major source of future talk-show hosts. Stewart consistently beat Conan O’Brien at the Emmy Awards, which in retrospect did display a certain bias toward the mistaken idea that political comedy is the more ambitious kind.
But the main reason that Stewart changed late night is simply that his show drew audiences, especially young ones. You started to see hosts like Letterman become more outspoken in their politics, not just battling with a vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, but also regularly inviting an unfiltered businessman named Donald Trump to spout off about the news of the day.
Putting aside the political considerations, the economic model for talk shows collapsed for the same reason that print media’s did: The internet. Ad rates plummeted. Social media made topical jokes before late-night shows did. And the growing fragmentation of the culture changed the calculus of what would resonate.
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