Stephen Colbert had some advice Tuesday night for MSNBC if it wants to attract back some of the viewers its lost since the 2024 election: Maybe one of the liberal-leaning network’s biggest stars could sex things up a smidge?
The gag came in Colbert’s “The Late Show” monologue, where he brought up the fact that a huge number of people — especially people inclined to watch MSNBC — are simply tuning everything out.
“If you watch regularly, then you know that here at ‘The Late Show,’ we have a self-imposed, ill-conceived mandate to every night talk about what people are talking about. The thing is, that was before Trump won reelection,” Colbert said.
“After he won reelection, what people are talking about is that they don’t want to talk about what everybody’s talking about. In fact, this is true, a new poll says that two thirds of US adults are turned tuning out political news, which is just more proof that our politics is something, I don’t know what, I’ve been tuning it out,” Colbert joked.
He was referring to this poll from late last month that did indeed show a huge number of Americans choosing to avoid politics news — which might be wise considering that being upset about things you have no power to change isn’t the healthiest.
“Democrats are particularly tuned out, which could be why, after election night, prime time, viewership of MSNBC is down 54%,” Colbert continued. This brought him to his advice.
“Listen up, MSNBC, you got to do whatever it takes to get those viewers back. Steve Kornacki, I think it might be time to ditch the khakis and show a little Korn-sackie,” Colbert joked. “You know, work the touch screen.”
After this, Colbert took at look at the press conference Donald Trump gave during which he claimed when he becomes president, the U.S. will stop referring to the Gulf of Mexico by its name and instead call it “The Gulf of America.”
“It’s gonna be a long 4 years,” Colbert said in response. Indeed.
Watch the full monologue below: