It's been a tumultuous time for late-night talk shows to say the least. The unprecedented and surprising shift in the environment began when CBS abruptly canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert following home network CBS' parent company Paramount merged with Skydance. The companies cited financial reasons for the cancellation, though others believe politics played a part.
Shortly after The Late Show's cancellation, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended by ABC after one of Kimmel's monologues referenced Charlie Kirk's death. Kimmel returned to air within a week, but the conversation around late-night has definitely changed. While Seth Meyers has caught some heat from President Trump, NBC's other late-night host Jimmy Fallon hasn't caught much flack yet.
According to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon host, his desire not ruffle feathers is by design and has been the intention of his show since he took over from Jay Leno in 2014. In a new interview while promoting his reality competition series On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, the long tenured late-night host and comedian revealed his method to staying out of political conflict.
How Jimmy Fallon plans to keep The Tonight Show on the air amid late-night conflict with President Trump
While making an appearance on CNBC's Squawk on the Street, Fallon touched on the political tension that has erupted in the late-night space and put a brighter spotlight on what the hosts can and can't say — or will and won't say. He gave some insight into how he and his writers approach the comedy he delivers in his opening monologues to remain as bipartisan as possible.
"Our show has never really been that political, you know. We hit both sides equally, and we try to make everybody laugh, and that’s really the way our show works. Our monologues are kind of the same that we’ve been doing since Johnny Carson was hosting TheTonight Show. So really, I just keep my head down and make sure the jokes are funny. I have great writers… clever, smart writers. And we’re just trying to make the best show we possibly can and entertain everybody," Fallon explained.
Surely, that's not to say that what he's doing is better than what Colbert, Kimmel, and Meyers have been doing, but it's merely an explanation of how he and his staff have tackled tricky subject matter and conversations and what works for their particular show. He's right that Colbert and Kimmel have been much more political than he has, even if Fallon still goes there from time to time.
There's still a sense of concern among late-night shows as political tension remains rife amid the current administration's close watch on what they say. Thankfully, with the shows all either back or still on the air and not backing down from their political commentary, some of the conflict has died down for now, especially with the hosts having a united front in the face of the chaos.
For now, we'll have to continue to see how the late-night hosts choose to handle the various political headlines that are coming nonstop each day. There could still be more conflict to come, especially with Saturday Night Live making its comeback this weekend, but hopefully we have seen the worst of it. Watch Fallon's explanation of his plan to avoid conflict below!