Roy Wood Jr. hosts the 2025 Sports Emmys
Roy Wood Jr. hosts the 2025 Sports EmmysJoe Sinnott / NATAS

“God bless whatever Stephen Colbert does next year with no network person to give him notes.”

That was the verdict of Roy Wood Jr., the host of CNN‘s Have I Got News For You, when considering how the soon-to-depart CBS late night presenter could use platforms like YouTube to make his anti-Trump voice heard extremely loudly soon.

“When he’s running rampant on YouTube like Don Lemon that will create a bigger issue for this administration in 2026 if he builds an audience,” added Wood Jr. “It will be a very different landscape if he continues to run off [after leaving CBS]. If [the Trump administration] were smart they would leave us alone and let us tell our jokes.”

Wood Jr. was speaking in the wake of Colbert’s show being canceled, with the presenter set to exit next May. Paramount has reiterated repeatedly that the move is a financial one but many consider it to be influenced by Trump, and the POTUS has loudly celebrated the decision. This has all taken place as the Paramount-Skydance merger has gone through and after Paramount settled with Trump over a questionable lawsuit targeting 60 Minutes.

Wood Jr. said CNN is holding firm amid Trump’s push against the media. One of the ways in which it is doing this, he added, is by having Conservative voices speak on the network. NBC, meanwhile, invited Fox Conservative commentator Greg Gutfeld onto the Jimmy Fallon show recently.

“This would be like if Piers Morgan went on Graham Norton,” joked Wood Jr., flagging a British example to the audience at Edinburgh.

In this way, Wood Jr. said traditional networks can try and regain some audience trust in the mainstream media,

Sadly, however, he went on to discuss how American journalists are not willing to sacrifice their jobs in order to make a political point.

“I don’t know if there are enough American journalists who care enough about the totality of our society to sacrifice their career,” he added. “Because then the question becomes, ‘How many journalists can you fire until you find a compliant one?’.”