Dear MoveOn member,
First, Stephen Colbert bravely called out CBS and Paramount for paying Donald Trump $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit—joking that the legal term for that deal was a “big fat bribe.”1
Next, less than 72 hours after Colbert spoke those words on his show, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” CBS announced that it was axing the show.2
Then, just days after CBS appeased Trump by silencing Colbert, the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agency rewarded CBS’s parent company, Paramount, by approving its massive $8 billion merger with another company—exactly the outcome that Paramount was willing to do anything to secure.3
What happened here isn’t a coincidence. It’s censorship, plain and simple—and it’s an unmistakable step on the road to authoritarianism in America.4 Lawsuits, bribes and rewards, using corporate cronies to muzzle critics and control the media … This is standard operating procedure in an authoritarian regime’s playbook.
By shutting down Colbert’s show, CBS and Paramount are silencing one of Trump’s most prominent and persistent critics. This is setting off alarms for everyone who cares about free speech.
We’re seeing major media companies, CEOs, and other institutions bend the knee to Trump, to protect their profits and avoid his wrath.
Colbert—one of the sharpest and most fearless voices holding Trump accountable—stood his ground and spoke truth to power. And millions of us have his back.
Thanks to MoveOn members, we’re close to raising enough to launch a billboard in Times Square in New York City to show our support for Colbert and hold CBS and Paramount accountable! Now, can you help us in our final push to get the billboard up—and keep it up long enough to actually get their attention?
Can you start a $5 monthly donation today to support MoveOn’s billboard demanding that CBS bring back “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as well as our ongoing work to hold corporations accountable for bowing to Trump’s whims?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
CBS executives claimed that Colbert’s cancellation was “purely a financial decision” unrelated to his criticism of Trump.5
But nobody’s buying it. “If CBS thinks people are just going to swallow this, they’re really deluded,” veteran media analyst Bill Carter warns.6 And the legendary “Late Show” host David Letterman posted a 20-minute supercut of his past CBS monologue jokes with the caption: “You can’t spell CBS without BS.”7
The public outrage is palpable. Nearly 130,000 people have already signed MoveOn’s petition demanding CBS reverse this decision and put Colbert back on the air. We see this for what it is: a brazen attack on free expression and an attempt to cow the media into serving an aspiring strongman.
Now, MoveOn is fighting back, but we need your help. Our giant billboard will call out CBS and Paramount for their cowardice and demand they stand up to Trump instead of silencing truth-tellers. It’ll be in New York City’s Times Square, close to Paramount’s headquarters.
But we can launch and keep the billboard up and amplify our message—“Put Colbert back on the air!”—only if we raise the funds right now.
Will you chip $5 in a month to help us launch and keep up our Times Square billboard demanding that CBS bring back “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and continue our ongoing work to hold corporations accountable?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Night after night, Colbert has used his platform to fight back against misinformation, disinformation, and lies coming from Trump and his cronies. He’s been one of the most incisive voices debunking the propaganda that Trump’s administration tries to pass off as reality.
It’s no wonder that Trump wanted Colbert off the air: Colbert’s satire and truth-telling exposed Trump as the emperor with no clothes.
Now is when we need Colbert’s voice the most. Disinformation is surging—security experts recently tracked a pro-Russian operation flooding the internet with fake news reports that mimic real outlets, part of a broader campaign to confuse and mislead the public.8 Colbert’s show is a vital bulwark against exactly this kind of onslaught of lies.
Taking Colbert off the air when propaganda and fake news are on the rise robs the American public of a crucial source of truth.
At the same time, Trump is openly tightening his grip on the flow of information and our democracy. Just this week, he declared that he will “lead a movement” to get rid of mail-in ballots and voting machines—effectively threatening to undermine fair elections in order to cling to power.9 Trump’s using the levers of government to punish critics and rewrite the rules to his advantage.
We’ve seen this playbook before in authoritarian regimes: silence the critics, flood the media with propaganda, attack independent institutions, and even try to rig elections. In Russia, for example, President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have spent years consolidating control over television news—and now Putin’s activities get wall-to-wall fawning coverage on state-run TV.10
If we don’t stop what’s happening in the United States right now, we risk waking up to a country where the only “news” is whatever keeps Trump happy and in power. This is the road to fascism, and we must fight back before it’s too late.
MoveOn members like you have never sat by quietly and let freedoms be stripped away. We know how to organize and protest—and our current Colbert billboard campaign is blasting a spotlight on this dangerous collusion between a power-hungry president and complicit media executives.
With enough consistent pressure, we can force CBS and Paramount to reverse course. Public pressure is building, but we need resources to keep up the fight and spread our message.
Will you chip in $5 a month to help MoveOn launch and keep up our Times Square billboard and power the rest of our work to stop corporations from leaning into Trump’s authoritarianism?
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Your donation will help fund the Times Square billboard and fuel a broader campaign to hold corporate media accountable for caving to political pressure.
Together, we’ll send a message that the American people will not tolerate the silencing of truth for the sake of profit or political expediency. We will defend our democracy’s bedrock principle of a free press. That includes entertainers and cultural figures like Colbert who speak truth to power.
If we don’t act now, Trump’s authoritarian creep will continue unchecked.
Together, we can stop it. We can protect the voices that dare to call out corruption and lies. We can ensure that our media isn’t reduced to a state propaganda machine. And we can show Trump and his cronies that we will not let them trample our First Amendment rights.
Will you join MoveOn in this critical fight? Start a $5 monthly donation to help us expose censorship and hold corporations accountable for capitulating to Trump. Let’s make sure the truth continues to have a platform in America.
No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Aliya, Allison, Justin, Britt, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. “Paramount’s Trump Settlement: A Big Fat Bribe,” YouTube, July 14, 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvx3L3DQb8
2. “Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation Is Exactly What It Looks Like,” The Present Age, July 18, 2025
https://www.readtpa.com/p/stephen-colberts-cancellation-is
3. “Cancelling Colbert, bribery, an $8bn deal: what’s going on at Paramount?” The Guardian, July 19, 2025
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jul/19/paramount-cbs-trump
4. “Is Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ cancellation an omen of something worse?” The Week, July 19, 2025
https://theweek.com/politics/stephen-colberts-late-show-cancellation-omen-worse
5. “CBS says Colbert cancelation was financial decision, but timing raises questions,” PBS News, July 18, 2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cbs-says-colbert-cancelation-was-financial-decision-but-timing-raises-questions
6. “Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ canceled by CBS, ends May 2026,” PBS News, July 18, 2025
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/stephen-colberts-late-show-canceled-by-cbs-ends-may-2026
7. “David Letterman shades former network in video amid Stephen Colbert cancellation: ‘You can’t spell CBS without BS,'” Entertainment Weekly, July 22, 2025
https://ew.com/david-letterman-shades-cbs-in-video-after-the-late-show-cancellation-11777289
8. “Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news,” Politico, August 17, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/17/russia-us-news-media-disinformation-campaign-00512173
9. “Trump says he will lead ‘movement’ to end mail-in voting,” ABC News, August 18, 2025
https://abcnews.go.com/US/video/trump-lead-movement-end-mail-voting-124746804
10. “Russian state TV channel airs new program devoted to Putin,” PBS News, September 3, 2018
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/russian-state-tv-channel-airs-new-program-devoted-to-putin
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