NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Jimmy Fallon Kisses the Conservative Ring.

After CBS announced it’s canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last month, there was widespread speculation that the decision was politically motivated. The thinking was that CBS fired one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics so that his administration would push through Paramount’s (CBS’s parent company) merger with Skydance. (Trump has claimed partial credit, writing on Truth Social that he is not “solely responsible” for CBS’s decision.) Others claimed the move was financial, arguing that late-night TV’s liberal-leaning material is the cause of the genre’s declining ratings. In either case, if the future of late-night television is in any way contingent on kissing the rings of conservatives, the world got a glimpse of what that might look like on August 7’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News’s wildly popular late-night show Gutfeld!, was featured on the show as guest, yukking it up with Fallon like the pair were old pals.

To some, Gutfeld! proves the theory that late-night TV would be more successful if it catered more to conservatives. The show, geared toward a MAGA audience, consistently outperforms all its competitors in linear ratings. Despite his success, Gutfeld’s appearance on The Tonight Show is the first time he’s been invited onto any of the big-network late-night shows since his own show debuted in 2021. It’s hard to view this booking as anything other than a ploy on the part of NBC to court his audience.

NBC late night shows booking conservatives? It’s never been done before!

Say, regarding that last fella in the white suit. Where did he use to write?

UPDATE: “Fallon Invites Gutfeld on ‘Tonight Show,’ Media Meltdown Ensues,” Christian Toto writes.