‘Give a Standing Ovation For This Man’: Jack White Salutes Stephen Colbert After ‘Late Night’ Finale

Jack White has raised a toast to Stephen Colbert, the satirist, talk-show master and Trump agitator whose 11-year reign at The Late Show came to an end Thursday evening, May 21.

Colbert gathered an all-star cast, and welcomed Beatles great Paul McCartney, for the emotional farewell. Many, however, including White, political commentator Robert Reich, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Wednesday night’s guest, Bruce Springsteen, insist that The Late Show should still be on the airwaves, but was canceled under a cloud of political censorship.

With Thursday night’s episode done, the show is over.

“America needs to give a standing ovation for this man tonight,” White writes on his socials. “God Bless Stephen, it is absolutely ridiculous that we live in a country where a President’s ego can vindictively censor network television…..and nobody stops him.”

The White Stripes frontman, himself a vocal critic of Donald Trump, continued: “Carry on down your new paths with your head held high sir. You’ve told the truth and given us so much to laugh at, and we’re expecting even more in the future. Thank you.”

Colbert’s stinging rebukes of Trump, his administration and the MAGA movement apparently hit a raw nerve with the president. In a Truth Social rant in late 2025, the president called on CBS to “put him to sleep,” and he’d go on to label Colbert a “pathetic trainwreck” and a “dead man walking.”

CBS did cancel the show in 2025, citing financial losses. Many progressives, however, point to the timing. The axe swung soon after Colbert’s criticism of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, over its $16 million legal settlement with Trump, coming at a moment when Paramount was on the brink of a merger deal that U.S. authorities could block.

Springsteen lauded Colbert on Wednesday night’s second-from-last episode. “I am here tonight to support Stephen, because you’re the first guy in America who lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke,” he remarked. Read Jack White’s post below.