David Letterman just issued a bold takedown of CBS for canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

On July 25, Letterman weighed in on the network’s decision to end Stephen Colbert’s show in May 2026 in a video published on the Letterman YouTube channel.

“I don’t think it was money,” he told host Barbara Gaines, who worked as an executive producer on The Late Show with David Letterman. “This is pure cowardice.”

“It’s all very strange. It was a bit of a surprise,” Letterman, 78, who hosted The Late Show from 1993 to 2015, admitted.

“10 years ago, I quit and left. And then Stephen Colbert comes along, and pretty quickly established himself as a precise, crisp, witty political satirist. And often his target has been the current administration,” he continued. “Based on that and just the overall entertainment quota of the show, drew a great audience and people became not addicted to but always looking forward to political satire from Stephen Colbert. He was very good at it and for 10 years, I think, became the face of the network.”

During his response to the situation, Letterman pointed to CBS’ parent company, Paramount, merging with Skydance as the reason behind Colbert’s axing.

The new owners “don’t want any trouble from that guy,” he claimed.

“If they were losing this kind of money, you’re telling me losing this kind of money happened yesterday. Yeah right,” he added. “I bet they were losing this kind of money six weeks ago, or they have never been losing money.”

On July 17, Colbert announced via Instagram that CBS was not only ending the show with him helming it, but the Late Show franchise as a whole. The network said the move was a “purely financial decision” that wasn’t “related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

Letterman also pointed out that CBS did not handle Colbert “in the way he deserves to have been handled.”

“What the f*** is Skydance, honest to Christ? Is it a discount airline? Is that what it is?” he exclaimed. “I think one day, if not today, the people at CBS, who have manipulated and handled this are going to be embarrassed because this is gutless.”

“I only wish this could happen to me,” Letterman concluded, noting that for him, “fighting with network television management was number one in the playbook.”

The Late Show, weekdays at 11:35 p.m. ET on CBS