Late Night Last Week: Hosts Condemn Political Violence, Emmys Recap, & More

By Will DiGravio  |  September 16, 2025 | 10:01am
(Photos: Comedy Central, NBC, CBS and ABC)
TV Features The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Late Night Last Week: Hosts Condemn Political Violence, Emmys Recap, & More

Each week,  Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, we cover how late night hosts responded to the killing of Charlie Kirk and political violence in America. We also recap how each show did at the 2025 Emmy Awards. 

Late night hosts last week dedicated time in their monologues to discuss and condemn the killing of Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist and broadcaster. As many of the shows had already wrapped taping by the time of the murder on September 10, it was not until the following day, the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, that hosts addressed it in full.

One exception, however, was Stephen Colbert, who returned to the Late Show studio on the 10th to record a short statement, during which he offered his condolences to the family and commented on America today. “I’m old enough to personally remember the political violence of the 1960s,” he said. “And I hope it’s obvious to everyone in America that political violence does not solve any of our political differences.”

“Political violence only leads to more political violence,” Colbert added.

The following evening, over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel echoed Colbert’s sentiment, adding that Kirk’s murder “has amplified our anger, our differences.” 

“I’ve seen a lot of  extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum,” Kimmel said. “Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”

Seth Meyers, of Late Night on NBC, shared a similar sentiment, extending his condolences while also connecting the death to gun violence in America—including the school shooting that occurred in Colorado on the same day—and connecting the killing to a string of incidents of political violence in recent years. 

 “The great promise of our democratic experiment is that we can engage with one another and resolve our differences through dialogue, not violence,” Meyers said. “We must hold true to that promise and strive toward it with our fullest effort, even when it feels furthest away.”

On The Daily Show, Michael Kosta, one of the program’s rotating guest hosts, similarly condemned the killing, while also unpacking the heated, even dangerous and unproductive rhetoric that has followed. Kosta made a deft pivot to the absurdity of the broader political ecosystem’s reactions—a turn The Daily Show often makes so well.

For example, Kosta shared statements condemning the killing by all the living former US presidents, including Bill Clinton, who called for “introspection.” Kosta added to the former president’s remarks: “Yeah, and let’s not get sidetracked by who may or not have been friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Just focus on the introspection thing.” The joke was a reference to new revelations regarding the Epstein case, including the release of images from a birthday book with images and notes authored by his powerful friends. 

The host then contrasted those remarks with those made by President Trump, who responded almost immediately by blaming the left. 

“Did we expect anything different? This is what this guy does,” Kosta said. “The last time Trump delivered a thoughtful message was apparently when he sent a birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein.”

Kosta was quick to acknowledge what comedy critics may be thinking at that moment. “I realize that’s two Epstein jokes in a row,” he said. “It’s not my fault everyone was friends with this guy.” 

Finally, Sunday marked the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. For the third consecutive year, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (which did not broadcast last week) took home the Emmy for Outstanding Scripted Variety Series. Remarkably, yet unsurprisingly, the show also bested The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live to take home the award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series for the tenth straight year. 

Saturday Night Live, meanwhile, took home its 113th Emmy, winning, again, understandably so, for their 50th anniversary special. But the big winner was Stephen Colbert, who just months after his show getting canceled, took home the award for Outstanding Talk Series on behalf of The Late Show team, besting his friends at The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! 

In his speech, Colbert said he had set out to create a late night show about love. 

“I don’t know if I ever figured that out, but at a certain point, and you can guess what that point was, I realized that, in some ways, we were doing a late-night comedy show about loss,” Colbert said. “That’s related to love, because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it.”

“Ten years later, in September of 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately,” he continued. “God bless America. Stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”

 Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.

 
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