Stephen Colbert’s Kamala Harris Interview Brought Together Two Beleaguered Symbols of Embattled Institutions
To announce that she would not be running for any public office — including governor of California, a race she had already declined to enter in a written statement — Kamala Harris chose a fitting venue. The former Vice President gave her first major televised interview since losing last year’s presidential election to Stephen Colbert, a man who can likely relate to her current situation. Both Harris and Colbert are exiting their prominent positions of influence, not entirely of their own volition. And both leave the helm of once-enduring institutions that seem to be crumbling behind them. The politician and the entertainer will both be just fine on their own, a fact it was hard to deny as Harris dedicated the bulk of the conversation to promoting an upcoming memoir, not sounding the alarm on injustice. It’s the systems they’re a face of that deserve our concern.
Colbert is, of course, the host of “The Late Show,” a program CBS has aired since 1993 and will discontinue next year, citing the show’s financial losses. But Colbert, like Harris, can also point to a resurgent Donald Trump as a factor in his slow-motion dismissal. The network’s parent company, Paramount Global, is in the midst of a merger that requires federal approval, making Colbert a seeming sacrificial lamb in the eyes of some congressional critics. Paramount had already agreed to pay Trump a settlement over a previous interview of Harris, on “60 Minutes” — a pact Colbert openly called a “bribe” shortly before his cancellation. Colbert never highlighted these parallels in his exchange with Harris, though to viewers with even the vaguest of contexts, they were impossible to ignore.
Following the earlier decision not to replace Taylor Tomlinson’s game show “After Midnight,” Colbert’s exit leaves CBS without any late night programming at all, and other networks with a precedent to follow when it comes to peer programs like NBC’s “The Tonight Show” or ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”. Late night as a genre — as an entire mode of promotion, punditry and showmanship — is in existential peril. The United States government is much larger, older and, in theory, more durable than this small slice of the entertainment industry. But it’s also higher stakes, and with recent attacks on the separation of powers, state capacity and civil liberties like free speech, democracy’s future feels equally in doubt.
Not that Harris herself displayed much urgency in her comments. She admitted to taking several months off of watching the news, then declared that she doesn’t want to “go back in the system” she considers “broken” — at least, she carefully noted, “for now.” This assessment was alarming from someone very much perceived as a political insider, as evidenced by an audible response from the studio audience. Towards the end of the extended interview, Harris had harsh words for the “naive” and “feckless” capitulation of elite institutions, though she declined the opportunity to name Paramount, her current host, as one of the culprits. As a career prosecutor, Harris at her harshest is often Harris at her best.
But for the most part, Harris stuck to a sales pitch for the book, named “107 Days” for the length of her campaign. It was jarring to watch the erstwhile senator slyly tease exclusive anecdotes about her husband Doug Emhoff forgetting to celebrate her birthday without so much a mention of, say, ICE’s incursion into her adopted hometown of Los Angeles. Despite stating her intention to get back in “the fight,” Harris offered little clarity on what, specifically, she wants to fight for, or what tactics she plans to deploy in the process. Maybe Harris will now pivot to direct action and put herself in the line of fire, like New York City comptroller Brad Lander getting detained at immigration court earlier this summer. Yet her performance on Colbert didn’t make the image any easier to envision. For all the rhetoric during the race about existential peril facing this country, Harris didn’t seem to be feeling it.
Colbert was a gentle, friendly presence throughout, asking after Emhoff, praising her debate performance and inviting Harris to say “I told you so.” Whatever is lost as “The Late Show” leaves the air, it won’t be a forum for critical, hard-hitting confrontation of establishment figures. As Colbert looks to his next act, the comedian himself will enjoy plenty of opportunities. Maybe he, too, will get a (no doubt highly lucrative) book deal to reflect on his career. Maybe he’ll finally win an Emmy as retroactive recognition for a format the TV Academy didn’t appreciate until it was on its way out the door. It’s the opportunity for other, less established, more precarious aspirants that’s being curtailed with the loss of late night — just as Harris’s loss was a loss for the vulnerable populations now targeted by the second Trump administration more than Harris herself. In this moment, a Harris-Colbert convergence was apt. It was also the opposite of encouraging.
Colbert is, of course, the host of “The Late Show,” a program CBS has aired since 1993 and will discontinue next year, citing the show’s financial losses. But Colbert, like Harris, can also point to a resurgent Donald Trump as a factor in his slow-motion dismissal. The network’s parent company, Paramount Global, is in the midst of a merger that requires federal approval, making Colbert a seeming sacrificial lamb in the eyes of some congressional critics. Paramount had already agreed to pay Trump a settlement over a previous interview of Harris, on “60 Minutes” — a pact Colbert openly called a “bribe” shortly before his cancellation. Colbert never highlighted these parallels in his exchange with Harris, though to viewers with even the vaguest of contexts, they were impossible to ignore.
Following the earlier decision not to replace Taylor Tomlinson’s game show “After Midnight,” Colbert’s exit leaves CBS without any late night programming at all, and other networks with a precedent to follow when it comes to peer programs like NBC’s “The Tonight Show” or ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”. Late night as a genre — as an entire mode of promotion, punditry and showmanship — is in existential peril. The United States government is much larger, older and, in theory, more durable than this small slice of the entertainment industry. But it’s also higher stakes, and with recent attacks on the separation of powers, state capacity and civil liberties like free speech, democracy’s future feels equally in doubt.
Not that Harris herself displayed much urgency in her comments. She admitted to taking several months off of watching the news, then declared that she doesn’t want to “go back in the system” she considers “broken” — at least, she carefully noted, “for now.” This assessment was alarming from someone very much perceived as a political insider, as evidenced by an audible response from the studio audience. Towards the end of the extended interview, Harris had harsh words for the “naive” and “feckless” capitulation of elite institutions, though she declined the opportunity to name Paramount, her current host, as one of the culprits. As a career prosecutor, Harris at her harshest is often Harris at her best.
But for the most part, Harris stuck to a sales pitch for the book, named “107 Days” for the length of her campaign. It was jarring to watch the erstwhile senator slyly tease exclusive anecdotes about her husband Doug Emhoff forgetting to celebrate her birthday without so much a mention of, say, ICE’s incursion into her adopted hometown of Los Angeles. Despite stating her intention to get back in “the fight,” Harris offered little clarity on what, specifically, she wants to fight for, or what tactics she plans to deploy in the process. Maybe Harris will now pivot to direct action and put herself in the line of fire, like New York City comptroller Brad Lander getting detained at immigration court earlier this summer. Yet her performance on Colbert didn’t make the image any easier to envision. For all the rhetoric during the race about existential peril facing this country, Harris didn’t seem to be feeling it.
Colbert was a gentle, friendly presence throughout, asking after Emhoff, praising her debate performance and inviting Harris to say “I told you so.” Whatever is lost as “The Late Show” leaves the air, it won’t be a forum for critical, hard-hitting confrontation of establishment figures. As Colbert looks to his next act, the comedian himself will enjoy plenty of opportunities. Maybe he, too, will get a (no doubt highly lucrative) book deal to reflect on his career. Maybe he’ll finally win an Emmy as retroactive recognition for a format the TV Academy didn’t appreciate until it was on its way out the door. It’s the opportunity for other, less established, more precarious aspirants that’s being curtailed with the loss of late night — just as Harris’s loss was a loss for the vulnerable populations now targeted by the second Trump administration more than Harris herself. In this moment, a Harris-Colbert convergence was apt. It was also the opposite of encouraging.