Our team presents thoughts on our "Virtual Walkabout" in America as the Trump Administration announced a deal with the European Union on Trade with a flat 15% tariff to what the EU President noted a "rebalancing of Trade"--and as we close out the Month with this from Heather Cox Richardson and Scott Galloway:
Ten days ago, ten Republican senators wrote to Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, asking him to release the funds Congress appropriated in March to support education. Vought was a key author of Project 2025, which claims the federal government has been taken over by a radical left cabal and calls for the decimation of that government in favor of state power, enabling the construction of a religious government.
Vought was central to the cuts made by the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) and has recently pushed Congress to put its stamp of approval on $9.4 billion of those cuts. Over the objections of Democrats, Republicans agreed earlier this month to approve cuts the administration made to laws passed by Congress, known as "rescissions,” for the first time in decades. Trump signed that measure into law on Thursday.
The Constitution charges the president with making sure the laws passed by Congress are “faithfully executed,” and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act prohibits the executive branch from withholding funds appropriated by Congress, leading lawmakers to object that the Trump administration is breaking the law and trying to take over Congress’s job of writing laws. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) said of the rescission package: “Let's not make a habit of this. Let’s not consider this a precedent.” But Vought says those cuts are just the beginning.
In March, Congress approved nearly $7 billion in education funding that was supposed to be released by July 1, but the administration announced on June 30 it would not do so, saying officials were conducting a “review.” The funds included money to recruit and train teachers and to support arts and music education in low-income areas, as well as funds for children learning English and for the children of migrant farm workers. New York Times education reporter Sarah Mervosh noted that the Office of Management and Budget said federal dollars were being “grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda.”
“We share your concern about taxpayer money going to fund radical left-wing programs,” the senators wrote to Vought, but “we do not believe that is happening with these funds.”
Also yesterday, Senator Katie Britt (R-AL), who chairs the Senate Appropriations homeland subcommittee, and thirteen of her Republican colleagues wrote a letter to Vought urging him to “fully implement” the government funding measure Congress passed in March, releasing money for programs funded by the National Institutes of Health. The letter clarified that its authors shared Vought’s “commitment to ensuring NIH funds are used responsibly and not diverted to ideological or unaccountable programs.” But, it warned, “Suspension of these appropriated funds—whether formally withheld or functionally delayed—could threaten Americans’ ability to access better treatments and limit our nation’s leadership in biomedical science.”
As Trump’s popularity falls, Republican lawmakers are having to confront the reality that the Project 2025 program the administration is putting into place is deeply unpopular not just with Democrats and Independents but also with Republicans. They appear to be trying desperately to shore up some of the damage the administration has done. And the White House seems to be concerned enough about the 2026 midterms that it’s listening. Yesterday the Trump administration announced it would release more than $5 billion in funding it had withheld from public schools.
The release of money before the start of the school year will help to hide from voters how the administration’s decisions are affecting their everyday lives, a helpful reprieve as the administration continues to stonewall over the files of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Still refusing to entertain the idea of releasing the files themselves, administration officials have now met twice with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse children. Trump’s former attorney Todd Blanche is representing the Department of Justice (DOJ). He wrote: “President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence. If Ghislane [sic] Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.”
Interviewing Maxwell, who is fishing for a reduction in her 20-year sentence, is unlikely to be a convincing substitute for the files themselves, especially since we now know Trump is mentioned in the files and lied that Attorney General Pam Bondi had not given him that information.
The circumstances around the talks also seem fishy. Alan Feuer of the New York Times reports that Blanche is a personal friend of Maxwell’s lawyer David O. Markus. Feuer also noted that Blanche has taken the lead in the discussions since the department fired Maurene Comey, who prosecuted the cases of both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell herself is a problematic witness: in 2020, during Trump’s first administration, the Justice Department charged her with two counts of perjury in addition to the charges of sexually grooming children and sex trafficking. As CNN’s Aaron Blake pointed out today, in filing the charges, the Justice Department said that her lies “should give the Court serious pause” about trusting her and that her “willingness to brazenly lie under oath about her conduct…strongly suggests her true motive has been and remains to avoid being held accountable for her crimes.”
Yesterday Trump appeared to dangle a pardon over Maxwell when he pointed out to reporters that he’s “allowed” to pardon her.
As Republicans note Trump’s weakening power, elected officials appear to be pushing for rollbacks of his policies. At the same time, his appointees are pushing to put as much of their agenda into operation as they can, while they can.
Liz Essley Whyte reported yesterday in the Wall Street Journal that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to remove all sixteen members of a task force that advises the federal government on what preventative health care measures—things like cancer screenings—health insurers must cover. Whyte explains that the people currently on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force have medical expertise, are vetted to make sure they don’t have conflicts of interest, and use the latest scientific evidence to determine which interventions work.
In June, Kennedy replaced all seventeen of the members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with seven people who share Kennedy’s distrust of vaccines. They announced that they would reexamine the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule for children and adults.
Hannah Natanson, Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, and Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post reported today that staff associated with the “Department of Government Efficiency” are using artificial intelligence to eliminate half of the government’s regulations by next January. James Burnham, former chief attorney for DOGE, told the reporters: “Creative deployment of artificial intelligence to advance the president’s regulatory agenda is one logical strategy to make significant progress” during Trump’s term.
Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, announced yesterday that it is starting a “detention support grant program” to fund temporary detention facilities. States have until August 8 to apply for grants from a pot of $608 million. FEMA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will distribute the funds.
There appears to be pushback against some of the extremes of the administration’s appointees. Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt, and Helene Cooper of the New York Times reported today that senior military officers are increasingly at odds with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon has been rocky, as most of his staff have either resigned or been fired and have not been replaced, and as he uploaded classified information about military strikes to a private Signal chat on which a reporter had been included.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), whose support for Hegseth earned him Senate confirmation, recently told CNN: “With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.”
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Notes:
https://www.capito.senate.gov/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/
https://www.washingtonpost.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/
https://www.wsj.com/health/
https://19thnews.org/2025/06/
https://www.bbc.com/news/
https://sam.gov/fal/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/
https://www.washingtonpost.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/
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AGPamBondi/status/
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It’s getting awfully late, early, for late-night TV. | |
Stephen Colbert shocked his audience on July 17 with the news that CBS had canceled The Late Show. I interpreted it as the latest sign of America’s descent into fascism — another media company bending the knee. The headlines came just three days after Colbert slammed Paramount’s decision to pay Trump $16 million to settle a nuisance lawsuit over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview, calling it a “big fat bribe.” CBS is part of Paramount, which needed the Trump administration to bless the transfer of billions from one billionaire nepobaby (David Ellison) to another billionaire nepobaby (Shari Redstone). At some point, people will notice the only ones willing to buy media companies are rich kids who didn’t have to actually make any money. But I digress. | |
I was wrong about Colbert. Economics are driving him out, not politics. Granted, two things can be true at once, and Colbert’s constant ribbing of the president probably made his walk on the green mile shorter. But, let’s be clear … winter was coming. This is an overdue reshaping of the supply chain in TV. Colbert isn’t going anywhere, it’s 185 of the 200 people working for him who are going to be getting their real estate licenses. The media reaction was outrage. Nothing is more precious than a 60-something comedian, who earns 100x what his staff makes, getting furious at the suits. | |
But the opportunistic infection that took a weakened late-night show down was the WGA’s decision to go on strike in 2023. Netflix and, to a lesser extent, scripted TV had enough shows in the bank to hang on to all or most of their audience, respectively, for about five months. But nobody was going to tune in to Jimmy Kimmel to see Michael Avenatti … again. When late-night went dark, millions of Americans realized they didn’t miss it, and they never returned. Jon Stewart should tell the WGA board, not Paramount’s management, to go fuck themselves. | |
Glory Days | |
Johnny Carson, the “king of late night” during his three-decade run as host of The Tonight Show, attracted a nightly audience of 10 million to 15 million at his peak. Adjusted for population growth, that would be like 25 million people tuning in tonight. By the late ’70s, Tonight accounted for 17% of NBC’s revenue. In 1988, a few years before Carson handed the reins to Jay Leno, advertising dollars spent on late-night TV surged to more than $1.2 billion, as carmakers, beverage companies, and movie studios rushed to win over younger, more affluent consumers. | |
In 2002, Leno’s show routinely attracted more than 5 million viewers a night — still strong — and late-night shows continued to deliver into the next decade. About 15 years ago, a popular late-night program could earn about $100 million a year. | |
Those days are gone. The entertainment sector has experienced a seismic shift, with late-night-TV advertising revenue collapsing 50%, to an estimated $220 million in 2024 from $439 million in 2018, according to data firm Guideline. In the five years leading up to its Chapter 11 filing, General Motors’ revenue declined 40%. In sum, if late-night television were a stand-alone business, it would have declared bankruptcy last year. | |
During the last two months — for the first time ever — viewers spent more time watching streaming services, including YouTube and Netflix, than the broadcast and cable networks combined. We’re still catching the highlight clips of late-night TV. But, as they do with the rest of media, technology platforms rent the content for 2 cents on the dollar. | |
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It isn’t the end of Colbert. It’s the end of late-night TV. Colbert’s Late Show reportedly has been losing more than $40 million a year for CBS, with a budget of $100 million per season and about 200 employees. Colbert quipped: “I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million? Oh, yeah.” Assuming the show is reeling in $60 million a year in revenue, that equates to $300,000 per employee. But less than 10% of The Late Show’s audience is between 18 and 49 years old, that coveted demographic still in their mating years and making irrational, high-margin purchases. And one of the key insights from the 2024 election is that podcast listeners swing elections, as they are (much) younger and more likely to be swayed. Nine out of 10 people who watch cable news and late-night, from an economic lens, don’t matter. | |
From Carlson to Conan | |
Think about it: Late-night has shed 90% of its audience over the past several decades. Contrast Colbert with our company, Prof G Media. (I never miss the opportunity to boast.) We expect to generate $15 million to $20 million in annual revenue next year, with about 15 full-time people. That figure, which excludes my podcast Pivot with Kara Swisher, equates to $1 million to $1.3 million per employee. Unlike the late-night category, we’re growing 20% to 30% annually, with half of our listeners in the 18-49 age bracket. We’re reaching nearly as many of the core demographic as late-night with 8% of the staff/cost. | |
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Talent Wins | |
TV’s biggest stars are simply arbitraging the means of production (i.e., losing 90% of their staff). The talent in front of the camera/mic has figured out how to hold on to their income and cultural relevance by reducing production costs. | |
When Fox News fired Tucker Carlson in 2023 — a week after the network settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for almost $800 million — he embraced his newfound independence. The Tucker Carlson Show averaged 1.06 million views throughout most of June and sat at No. 11 on YouTube’s podcast rankings last week. Even if his audience is smaller than it was previously, he’s likely capturing similar economic value (i.e., pay) with a smaller team. Podcasts are TV … just more efficient. | |
Megyn Kelly, ousted from NBC in 2019, is another example. Semafor reported last year that her Megyn Kelly Show was drawing audiences comparable to those of the legacy media outlets — with only six employees. The show, among the most followed political podcasts in the U.S., had 3.5 million subscribers in March. | |
Finally, consider Conan O’Brien, who hosted Late Night and The Tonight Show, both on NBC, and then Conan on TBS. I’d speculate that O’Brien, who launched the weekly podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend in 2018 and later sold his podcast business to SiriusXM for $150 million, is making more money today than he did in his late-night heyday. The 150 people who worked at Late Night? See above: real estate agents. | |
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From Bad to Worse | |
Even though his audience has dropped from a peak of more than 3.1 million viewers in 2017-18, Colbert enjoys better ratings than his competitors, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, registering an average of 2.42 million viewers during the three-month period ending in June. That compared with 1.77 million and 1.19 million for Kimmel and Fallon, respectively. If Colbert can’t hang on, it doesn’t bode well for his rivals or the staff who don’t make it onto the podcast arc with their boss. | |
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Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel shouldn’t be worried. They are caged in a broken business model, and it’s only a matter of time before they break free. In his first broadcast since CBS pulled the plug, Colbert earlier this week warned Trump that the “gloves are off.” When his contract ends in 10 months, the economic shackles will also come off. Instead of leading a $60 million business with 200 staff, Colbert will likely helm a $20 million business with 12 highly skilled people. These shows might lack the glitz and glamor of late-night. But that can be an advantage, as Colbert demonstrated during the pandemic, when he delivered monologues at home without a live audience, his wife, Evie Colbert, by his side. | |
More stars will follow Colbert into the next frontier after he leaves the late-night stage. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, who’s already reduced her on-air commitments to pursue podcasts, may not be able to match the $25 million salary she reportedly negotiated at the network, but her current compensation is unsustainable … and she knows it. | |
Primetime for Podcasts | |
When it returned to its traditional format in the Ed Sullivan Theater in June 2021, The Late Show seemed eager to embrace the old-school model — and ditch everything it learned in lockdown. But the future looks more like Colbert at his vacation home in South Carolina than in front of a live audience with a band, Manhattan rent, and union workers. It means sharply lower production costs, with a lean team of 20, not 200. Call it the Old Navy of media: 80% of the production quality for a fifth of the price. The end is nigh for late-night TV. But podcasts delivering high-quality — and highly profitable — entertainment are just warming up. | |
RAF | |
Colbert will be just as relevant, and as much a pain in Trump’s ass, he’ll just do it via a different means of production. Podcasts are TV, but with an audio-first overlay and better unit economics. Commending the RAF in 1940, Winston Churchill said that never “was so much owed by so many to so few.” In cable news and late-night television, rarely have so many talented people been less relevant. | |
Life is so rich, |
