On MSNBC's The Beat with Ari Melber, Angelo Carusone explains the impact of Colbert's cancelation
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From the July 22, 2025, edition of MSNBC's The Beat with Ari Melber
ANTONIA HYLTON: (HOST): Angelo, is Jon Stewart right about the dangers of pre-compliance by corporations when it comes to Trump?
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, power perceived is power achieved. So, even if the FCC didn't make it hard and firm conditions for this deal to go through, in a weird way that's even worse because it meant that Paramount and Skydance went above and beyond what they needed to do, that they went even further than was required of them to demonstrate their fealty, so that they could get approval. And, you know you can criticize them, and then you can then think about the larger downstream effects here because if they're doing that, it starts to create that this is now the way business gets done. It's the same that corruption is like a poison and it seeps out and takes everything over. So, I think that's the right way to think about it.
You know, we don't have to jump to conclusions. We don't have to make assumptions, although, there's a lot of evidence to show that the timing here doesn't work out, doesn't line up. But I think ultimately the pre-compliance is a big piece. And then the other part that I would just add to Jon Stewart is that is performance because I would just note that this became public the same week, within just a few days, that David Ellison made filings and commitments to the FCC promising that a new -- that when the deal goes through, that his new company will have a diversity of opinion. And I think they wanted this out there publicly one way because this decision was made several weeks ago as we know. But they wanted that to be known publicly at the same time that he made those promises to the FCC because it helps reinforce that claim. It's performative, so pre-compliance and performance.
HYLTON: It also seems like in a way Trump is kind of giving the game away online as he posts through this whole thing by saying and hinting he hopes to see other late night hosts fired soon. But then also this Truth Social post where he says basically that the total is $36 million, not the original $16 million. And then what we still don't know a lot about here, which is that this is apparently about public service announcements and advertising, I guess we're left to assume for conservative causes. Did that surprise you when we heard this and what did it signal?
CARUSONE: No, because if you -- that I think is very consistent because I think the thing to put in context here is that what we're talking about in terms of the federal government using heavy-handed tactics to apply pressure to a deal -- because even if they didn't do it with Colbert, they for sure did it with the settlement. I mean, Trump himself said that back in June, that he thought that David Ellison was going to be a great owner, but one of the things holding up the merger was this CBS thing that needed to get resolved regarding the lawsuit.
So, I mean, he basically gave it away, but what doesn't surprise me about the sweetener is that in every industry where the Trump administration is applying government power to try to break them, and we saw this a lot in the legal community, they wanted these sweeteners. It wasn't enough that these entities caved, right, that the law firm said, "We're going to give you everything you asked for." They had to give them free Pro bono work too to support Trump administration causes. And that is the same thing we're seeing play out right now in some of these higher education fights where not only are they willing to give Trump everything he's asking for, some of the schools in terms of their policy changes, but they're also willing to -- they're also apparently going to have to pay some kind of money in addition to that, which is absolutely wild.
HYLTON: Quickly, I'm curious if you think now that comedians are seeing all of this play out, if we're going to see them feel like they have nothing to lose? I mean, Colbert is going to be on the air for months more. So, are we going to get the same Colbert or are people going to scale back and start to self-censor, in your view?
CARUSONE: I don't think the individuals are going to scale back. I think, in fact, this only -- especially comedians, you know, one of the things in history is that comedians used to be the truth tellers. That was in, you know, when you had kings and queens, one of the few people that could actually tell the truth and not get killed were the jesters. That's why they existed. That has been a part of comedians throughout history. And so I think this is only going to inspire them to be more, you know, sharp in their critiques and their satire. But I think what's scarier for me is that while those individuals are doing things and they matter and they help demonstrate some resilience in free speech, I think that this practice and pattern at these big institutional levels is actually only going to accelerate. There have seen not any meaningful speed bumps. And the FCC is one of many agencies, and they're just getting started when it comes to these deals.