The Late Show with Stephen Colbert during Thursday’s July 25, 2019 show.

Stephen Colbert gave a full-throated defense of suspended late-night show colleague Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night and called President Donald Trump an “autocrat.”

“I’m your host, Steven Colbert, but tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel,” Colbert said in a fiery opening monologue for his CBS show.

Colbert called ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” a day earlier under pressure from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, “blatant censorship.”

The Disney subsidiary yanked Kimmel’s show indefinitely after outrage over his recent on-air comments linking the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to Trump’s MAGA movement.

“With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” Colbert told his audience at “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on Thursday.

“Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100%” said Colbert, who also has been criticized by the president.

Colbert dedicated Thursday’s show to free speech and to Kimmel’s team.

Trump has praised Kimmel’s suspension and suggested Thursday that the FCC might revoke the licenses of broadcast TV networks that are “against” him.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday hinted that ABC’s license was at stake if it did not take action against Kimmel.

Colbert on Thursday said that Carr’s “comments sure seem like marching orders.”

His episode featured a segment of “The Colbert Report,” in which the host satirically portrays a conservative pundit, and interviews with CNN anchor Jake Tapper and The New Yorker Editor David Remnick.

Remnick discussed his time as a correspondent in Moscow during the final years of the Soviet Union and the early years of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tenure.

Remnick said that one of the first things that Putin did to consolidate control of Russia was to crack down on comedians.

Colbert looked physically exhausted at the end of the taping.

CBS in July announced it would cancel Colbert’s show, effective next May.

The announcement came soon after Colbert blasted CBS for giving what he called “a big fat bribe” to Trump. That referred to the network’s parent company, Paramount, agreeing to pay $16 million for Trump’s future library to settle a lawsuit by him over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who was running against him in the 2024 presidential election.

A week after the cancellation was announced, the FCC approved an $8 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance Media.

Colbert noted Thursday night that ABC suspended Kimmel hours after Nexstar Media Group said that its stations affiliated with ABC would preempt the show “for the foreseeable future” because of Kimmel’s statements about Trump.

Nexstar needs the FCC’s approval for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna

People in Colbert’s audience praised his defiant stance after the taping of the show.

John Carter, a 61-year-old New Jersey resident, told CNBC, “He really said no matter what you do, we’re not going to let you get away with this madness.”

Another Garden State resident in the audience, Camille Carter, said, “I would be surprised if he makes it to the end of his contract in May.”

“Steven is putting himself out there on our behalf and raising the alarm,” said Solyasela Escudlo, a 45-year-old from the Bronx. “It takes a lot of courage to do what he did tonight, and it was simply stating facts that democracy depends on free speech.”

Corey Dickinson, 63, said, “Our country is under great threat of freedom of speech. This is a turning point in America, and a very scary time.”

“However, my wife and I both said to ourselves after watching this episode that we both felt like we were watching history in the making, and this might very well be Stephen Colbert’s last show on CBS,” said Dickinson, who lives in Palm Springs, California.

Jimmy Fallon, the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” reportedly opened the taping of that show Thursday with jokes about Kimmel’s suspension, before becoming serious.

“To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on — no one does,” Fallon said, according to people who attended the taping who spoke with the industry news site LateNighter.

“But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he is a decent, funny, and loving guy,” Fallon said, according to the outlet. “And I hope he comes back.”

Earlier Thursday, late-night legend David Letterman called the suspension of Kimmel’s show “ridiculous,” saying, “You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office.”

“I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct?” Letterman told Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic Festival in New York.

David Letterman takes part in the 2025 Atlantic Festival at PAC NYC on Sept. 18, 2025 in New York City.

Michael Loccisano | Getty Images

“It’s managed media,” said Letterman, who hosted shows on CBS and NBC for more than three decades.

“And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous,” he said.

Letterman compared ABC’s move to the decision by CBS to cancel Colbert’s show.

“They took care of Colbert,” Letterman said.

“That was rude, that was inexcusable, the man deserves a great deal of credit, he’s in the Hall of Fame nine times, and to be manipulated like that, because the Ellison family [which owned Skydance] didn’t want to trouble Donald Trump with this move, so they got rid of him,” Letterman said.

“Not only got rid of him, got rid of the whole franchise.”

Letterman said he’s been in touch with Kimmel since the suspension was announced.

“He was nice enough to text me this morning,” Letterman said. “And he’s sitting up in bed taking nourishment. He’s going to be fine.”

Another late-night host, Jon Stewart, on Thursday planned to host an episode of “The Daily Show.”

Stewart, as a rule, only hosts the Comedy Central show on Mondays. His change of routine was seen as a sign he will address Kimmel’s suspension.

He is set to interview Maria Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the author of the book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” the Associated Press reported.

Variety reported Thursday that there were protests about Kimmel’s suspension outside Disney’s headquarters in Burbank, California, and in New York.

In New York, protestors chanted, “Kimmel stays, Trump must go” and “ABC, grow a spine,” according to Variety.

Trump on Wednesday night crowed about Kimmel’s suspension and mentioned Colbert.

“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.”

He suggested that NBC follow ABC’s example and cancel its own evening shows, Fallon’s and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

Harris, the former vice president, in a tweet on Thursday, said, “What we are witnessing is an outright abuse of power.”

“This administration is attacking critics and using fear as a weapon to silence anyone who would speak out,” she wrote.

“Media corporations — from television networks to newspapers — are capitulating to these threats,” Harris wrote. “We cannot dare to be silent or complacent in the face of this frontal assault on free speech.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.