In Congress: A Rebellion in the Senate

Senate Republicans Are. Not. Happy. about the sweetheart slush fund that Acting AG Todd Blanche is trying to set up for Donald Trump. And, for once, they may actually act on that unhappiness.

We don't mean to suggest that every Senate Republican is carping, of course. There are some members, like Sens. Rick Scott (FL) and Mike Lee (UT), who invariably come out loudly in favor of whatever Trump is doing, no matter how illegal or grifty. There are also some members who, whenever a light is shined on the Senate, scatter and hide like cockroaches, and are nowhere to be found.

But a sizable number of Republican senators, including some of the high-profile ones, are screaming bloody murder. There was a meeting with Acting AG Todd Blanche on Thursday, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told reporters there was literal screaming. And on his podcast, Cruz said that noses have been counted, and "at least" half the Republican conference is ready to vote against the slush fund. Add in all the Democrats and independents, and subtract John Fetterman (D?-PA), and that's more than enough to overcome a filibuster or a veto. It is also enough to convict in an impeachment trial, incidentally.

We have no idea how this will work out, long-term. However, in the short term, the Senate canceled a planned vote on the reconciliation bill that would theoretically fund ICE and CBP. And then the members left for the Memorial Day break; they won't be back in Washington until June 1. Oh, and June 1 also happens to be the deadline by which Trump demanded that the reconciliation bill reach his desk. The message would seem to be: "We're not going to give you what you want, until you get rid of this boondoggle we don't want."

Incidentally, it is the world's worst-kept secret that Blanche is doing all of this because he wants to be nominated as the permanent AG. Do you think it has occurred to him, for even a minute, that getting Trump to nominate him is only half the battle? The other half, of course, is that he would have to be confirmed... by the Senate. Recent events suggest strongly that confirmation is not forthcoming. In fact, we suspect someone has communicated to Trump that he's better off not nominating Blanche at all, to avoid the embarrassment of having to withdraw the nomination.

Over in the House, the news is more... muddy. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also canceled a vote, but one that Trump was happy to see canceled, the War Powers Act resolution. In addition, Johnson and his colleagues are furious with the Senate for tabling the reconciliation bill. So, that's two very Trump-friendly postures. On the other hand, some House Republicans, particularly the ones up in swing districts, share their GOP Senate colleagues' unhappiness about the slush fund. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who faces a difficult reelection bid, and whose primary is over (so, too late for a MAGA challenger), is leading the charge. We hardly need to remind readers that it only takes a few defections on that side of the Hill to bring a bill to the floor via discharge petition, and to pass it, assuming all Democrats agree. House Republicans have also departed until June 1, so we'll have to wait a week for the next episode in this little soap opera.

Meanwhile, it was just this Tuesday that countless commentators, observing the setbacks for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), then Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), then (likely) Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote that Donald Trump's power over the GOP is complete. Once the primaries are past and once a bunch of lame-duck free agents are free to vote their consciences, Trump will have a harder time controlling Congress. The early results would seem to vindicate that. (Z)

For Every Action...: Kevin Warsh Is Sworn in as Fed Chair

Chair Jerome Powell, who led the Federal Reserve for a bit more than 8 years, has reached the end of the line. Actually, he technically reached the end of the line on May 15, but chairs generally stay on until their replacements are formally sworn in. Yesterday, Kevin Warsh was, so the economy is his problem now.

We wrote an item earlier this week about how Warsh has little hope of succeeding, since what Donald Trump wants (lower interest rates) runs contrary to the current state of the economy (high inflation). So, we won't cover that ground again.

However, we have a reader who was a college classmate of Warsh's and has had a long career in finance. And so, we thought it might be helpful to share that perspective. So, take it away J.K. in Short Hills, NJ:

I graduated from Stanford with Kevin Warsh. I did not know him while in school. Many in my innermost circle did, however. The most common characteristic used to describe him was "arrogant." A few have even called him a pr**k. Warsh was quite conservative and, on a left-leaning campus, his politics made him an outlier. To be fair, those who knew him also labeled his intellect as top shelf.

As a market strategist on Wall Street, I have followed Warsh's meteoric rise from college classmate to Fed Chair. He has led a charmed—some would say "privileged"—life since leaving Palo Alto. After attaining his J.D. from Harvard, he entered the world of M&A banking at Morgan Stanley, eventually rising to middle management. The positive inflection point in his career began with his marrying into the Estée Lauder empire. Those connections landed him a job in the White House on the George W. Bush economic team, despite not being trained as an economist in the literal sense. The former President then appointed him, a veritable no-name, to be the youngest and wealthiest Fed Governor in history in 2006.

As the neophyte at the Fed, he seemed to speak less publicly than his colleagues. It was during the financial crisis, though, when Warsh "made his bones." When Chair Ben Bernanke needed someone on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to navigate the market turbulence, it was Warsh, despite empirically not having much market experience, to whom he turned. For that, Warsh, who earned the respect of Wall Street for a job well done, should be commended. After resigning his post as Governor in 2011, Warsh got on his soap box and claimed that quantitative easing had gone too far. He contended that the Fed's making massive purchases of fixed income securities to improve market liquidity during periods of crisis was necessary, but the balance sheet should be normalized when order was restored. We will never know if he was/is correct or how much quantitative easing helped the economy. Certainly, his thesis was at least reasonable.

Warsh parlayed his Fed appointment to various roles—he returned to Stanford to be a fellow at the Hoover Institute, a true bastion of conservatism. He also became a partner at Duquesne Capital, run by legendary fund manager Stan Drukenmiller, to fill his already heavy treasure chest. Warsh was supposedly a finalist for the FOMC Chair in 2018, which eventually was given to Jerome Powell. Donald Trump publicly bemoaned his choice of Powell over Warsh soon after the former took the reins at the central bank.

At the start of Trump's current term, Warsh was the favorite for Treasury Secretary. Knowing what I do about him from those who knew him back in the day, I surmise that he passed on the appointment (or was skipped over by the President) because doing so would have made him Trump's bi**h lackey. It was Fed Chair or bust.

Arguably an "expert," I do believe Warsh is qualified. While his ascension to Fed Governor in 2006 was laughable, his being confirmed as Chair in 2026 was appropriate. Given his experience, he should have been on Trump's shortlist. Rick Rieder, who hired me out of Wharton for my first job on Wall Street and is a fellow resident of Short Hills, was supposedly runner-up to Warsh. While Rieder is one of the most admired people in finance, Warsh was the better fit. Frankly, the partly-line vote for Warsh's confirmation in the full Senate, save John Fetterman, was disappointing and not deserved.

Those who voted "no" contend that Warsh will simply take his orders from the President. Again, knowing what I know about Warsh, and that he either self-selected himself out or was passed over for Treasury, suggests that he will act independently from the White House. Although both Trump and Warsh want/foresee lower interest rates, so do some market economists that I respect immensely and are far smarter than I am.

Moreover, the FOMC is not a dictatorship. While the Chair has tremendous influence, it is a democracy that Warsh should respect given his prior time as Governor. The current composition of the Fed would push back on any immediate demand by Warsh to cut rates. More importantly, Warsh, thanks to his tenure at Duquesne, knows that cutting rates when no one expects him to would foment substantial volatility, which is bad for markets and ultimately the economy. He may still be a pr**k and an opportunist, but he certainly cares about his legacy.

That said, I have no idea whether he will be successful and concede that new Fed Chairs have a track record of making at least one meaningful blunder in the first 18 months of their tenure. There are also things that concern me about Warsh. Differing from him, I believe that the demand created by the AI build-out will initially outweigh the productivity gains from the new technology, which could stoke inflation and merit higher rates. His also believing that the Fed can reduce the Fed's balance sheet as a counterbalance to inflation sourced by cutting rates is risky and unproven. Time will tell. Still, I am hopeful.

Thanks, J.K.! (Z)

...There Is an Equal and Opposite Reaction: Tulsi Gabbard Is Out as DNI

DNI Tulsi Gabbard has had, for a Cabinet-level officeholder, one of the more bizarre tenures in recent memory. As a person who was a Democrat, an independent and a Republican within the span of 16 months, she doesn't really have a political constituency that she brings into the tent (unlike, say, Robert Kennedy Jr. and MAHA). And she is most certainly not on the same page as Donald Trump when it comes to foreign policy, other than their both being buddy-buddy with Vladimir Putin. How she got, and kept, her job we don't fully understand.

Anyhow, Gabbard has gotten caught sweeping misbehavior by her staff under the rug, has fired key members of the intelligence establishment, has had more than one embarrassing appearance before Congress, has indulged in much conspiratorial thinking, has been overtly Islamophobic, has accused Barack Obama of treason, has participated in the seizure of ballots in Georgia, and has flipped and flopped on Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Some of the "bugs" in the previous paragraph are features, as far as this White House is concerned. But others were obvious, and desperate, attempts to please The Donald and to protect Gabbard's job. That makes clear that Gabbard knew she was in trouble. Her biggest problem is that the Iran War is a mess, and Newton's Fourth Law of Motion declares that messes during a Donald Trump administration cannot be the fault of Donald Trump. So, someone else has to be the fall guy or gal.

Consequently, after months of speculation this was coming, Gabbard submitted her resignation yesterday. The official story is that her husband was diagnosed with cancer (true), and she wants to be able to support him (probably also true). However, the timing is such that anyone and everyone assumed that Gabbard was pushed out, and that the cancer story was meant primarily to allow her to save face. It took Reuters about 12 hours to confirm that is the case.

It is not clear, at this point, who will be named to succeed Gabbard. Maybe the administration will just add this job to Marco Rubio's portfolio—who knows? The only thing we are sure of is that the next DNI will be no more able to "solve" Iran than the one who just left. Meanwhile, the administration is pretty much running out of Cabinet-level women to fire. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, Secretary of "Education" Linda McMahon and SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler are still around, so maybe one of them will be next to go. Otherwise, it will have to be a man. Hmmm... maybe Trump can ease the transition to y-chromosomy by firing someone who's half a man. Say, Kash Patel? (Z)

Political Bytes: Will Trump Force Kash Patel out Next?

Next week, we really hope things will be less hectic than they were this week. Not only was there a LOT of news, but one of our two main authors is preparing for a trip, while the other had some pretty serious professional and personal obligations, on top of Thursday night's technical issues. The point here is that we really dislike pushing this feature all the way to Friday. However, what we dislike even more is not getting to it at all. So, let's do it, starting with the several ways in which FBI Director Kash Patel made the wrong kind of news this week:

Patel, Part I: Consistent with a general pattern seen in this administration (see above), Patel's "leadership" has a clear misogynist streak. Specifically, every time he has ordered the FBI to investigate a journalist, that journalist was a woman. Targets have included Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic, Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post and Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times.

Our Take: We actually suspect that Patel is not targeting women, per se. We suspect that the area of reporting that bothers him the most, accountability reporting, is dominated by women reporters. That said, if an official's actions have a discriminatory impact, it's still illegal, whether or not intent was there. And, perhaps more importantly, the Trump administration is already having enough trouble with women voters. It doesn't need even more fuel for that particular fire.

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Patel, Part II: Patel, whose attendance at work is spotty at best, wants to make it seem like he's the most "law and order" FBI Chief since J. Edgar Hoover. To that end, he has been bragging about statistical evidence of his own effectiveness as leader, namely that arrests have doubled under his leadership, and so has the rate at which "Ten Most Wanted" fugitives are captured. To nobody's surprise; these numbers are cooked. The "arrests" figure includes all the accused undocumented immigrants that have been arrested. Meanwhile, the Bureau has developed a habit of tracking a person down, quickly adding them to the "Most Wanted" list, and then popping them.

Our Take: Everyone knows the old Mark Twain line about "lies, damned lies and statistics." Well, between working for The Los Angeles Times on a longitudinal study of murder rates in L.A., and taking Eric Monkkonen's class on urban crime, (Z) can affirm that there is no kind of statistic that is more easily manipulated than crime statistics.

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Patel, Part III: Trump appointees like to indulge deeply when it comes to the "spoils" of office. And Patel particularly enthusiastic on this front, even among his Trump administration peers. This week, there was news that he pulled strings in order to be able to undertake a snorkeling expedition, on the site of the U.S.S. Arizona.

Our Take: First, it's a particularly important cemetery for a particularly hallowed group of American war dead. Why can't you just leave it be, Kash? Second, the boat and the bodies have been down there for 85 years. What, exactly, so you expect to see, Kash? Third, voters don't like it when you treat war dead cavalierly. Don't you know that, Kash? Everyone involved in this, from Patel on down, should be fired immediately.

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Musical Chairs, Part I: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is done after this term, and there is much competition for her safe-blue district. This week, Pelosi made an endorsement, saying she would like to see progressive San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan (D) succeed her.

Our Take: There is a Republican in the race (Scott Wiener) who will advance to the next round, and the other candidate will either be Chan or Saikat Chakrabarti (D) for the second spot. It's fair to assume that Pelosi's endorsement will propel Chan to the general, and it's even fairer to assume that the Democratic candidate in the race will win the D+36 district. Should all of that come to pass, Chan will have the honor of being the person who succeeded Pelosi, and will also have the challenge of being the person who succeeded Pelosi.

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Musical Chairs, Part II: Also leaving Congress, as of this week, is Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). The new maps leave him without a viable district to run in, and so he announced that after 20 years in the House, and 50 years in politics overall, he's retiring.

Our Take: Having spent nearly his entire adult life in politics, Cohen's certainly earned a nice retirement. It is a shame it could not be on his own terms, however.

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Musical Chairs, Part III: In contrast to Pelosi and Cohen, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) is not quite ready to be done. She currently represents FL-25, but that district is now going to be spread across five districts, which means she has to choose. And she has now chosen FL-20, which will still be plenty blue, even under the new map. The problem is that the district has been represented by a Black person for decades, and how it will be Wasserman Schultz, who is white, up against a bunch of Black candidates, in what is still a plurality-Black district. So, the optics here are pretty icky. This is a dry run for a problem the Democrats are going to have in next year's round of gerrymandering. To maximize the number of seats they get, they will have to draw lines that dilute Black-majority districts in such a way that a white Democrat is going to win the primary. There won't be a lot of Black Democrats in Jan. 2029 unless the DCCC makes a real serious effort to have Ivy League-educated Black lawyers run in overeducated blue districts and endorses and supports them. It's going to be a real problem.

Our Take: Wasserman Schultz will probably win, especially since the most prominent Black candidate in the race is Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who is a crook.

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Black Like Me: Mike Lee would like you to know that his political party is plenty diverse. To that end, he posted to eX-Twitter a picture of the four Black members of the House Republican Conference, along with the comment "This is NOT the party of Jim Crow." Problem 1: There are 218 members of the Conference, which means that Black members make up just 1.8% of it. Problem 2: All four Black members will be leaving at the end of this term, for various reasons, and are not likely to be replaced by other Black members, reducing that number to 0.0%.

Our Take: It would seem that the GOP, in fact, IS the party of Jim Crow. Barring the unexpected, the only Black Republican in Congress, as of Jan. 3, 2027, will be Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).

That's our story and we're sticking to it. (Z)

Paging Mr. Rogers (No, Not That One): DNC Releases Autopsy... Sort Of

Of all the critical things that have been said about the Democratic Party, the barb that may have penetrated most deeply, and maye have had the most longevity, came from inside the blue tent. We speak, of course, of the famous line from Will Rogers, who decreed: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

This week, the Party is helping folks to understand where that reputation might have come from. DNC Ken Martin said, many months ago, that he would release the autopsy that the Party commissioned after the 2024 elections. Then, providing everyone with a wonderful object lesson in the Streisand Effect, Martin said that the autopsy would not be released, after all. And then this week, having figured out that the subject was NOT going away, he had the report released, after all. Well, a version of the report, anyhow.

It's a very... odd document, as you can see for yourself if you click through. On releasing the document, Martin immediately disowned it, and said it represents the views of its author, Democratic operative Paul Rivera, and not the Party. Every single page has this header, in red type:

Disclaimer: This document reflects the views of the author, not the DNC. The DNC was not provided with the underlying sourcing, interviews, or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein and therefore cannot independently verify the claims presented.

In addition to the red-type header, there are comments inserted into the document, the sort that an editor would put into a draft that was far from being complete. Seems to us that if Rivera did a poor job, or if he didn't properly finish the job, then... that's still on the DNC, right? They're the ones who gave him the assignment.

Broadly speaking, it's pretty obvious stuff. Although the document checks in at around 200 pages, we probably could have knocked it out in a weekend, since it's pretty much all stuff we could have written off the top of our heads (in fact, the word count is around 55,000, which is a total we've been known to exceed in a week, if it's a particularly news-heavy week). For example, the report observes that Republicans are better at spreading misinformation, and that Kamala Harris should have done more to counter accusations that she is radically pro-trans. Gee, those are some keen insights there.

That said, as with the Epstein Files, the real story is what is NOT in the report. Although it's pretty critical of Harris, it largely handles Joe Biden with kid gloves, and does not say that, just maybe, Biden should not have tried to run for reelection. More obviously, and more glaringly, the report does not contain the words "Gaza," "Palestine" or "Israel."

We understand well that the Israel issue is a difficult one for the Democratic Party, as it divides them badly, while largely unifying the Republicans. Still, it is possible to say that without taking sides. In fact, we just did it. And since that issue was clearly a key part of Harris' loss, it makes the whole report look either incompetent or, more likely, dishonest. That is to say, for months the whispers have been that Israel/Palestine was the specific reason that the DNC sat on the report. And for that subject to be completely absent suggests pretty strongly that the report was edited or otherwise doctored before it was released.

So, it would appear that Martin has once again made the situation worse, not better. We don't think we've ever been less impressed with a major-party chair. Even Ronna Romney McDaniel was just overly obeisant, not incompetent. At this point, the blue team is going to have to hope that things like $1,776,000,000.00 slush funds serve to drown out this story. (Z)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The Crowd Goes Wild... When We Skip a Posting

Posting every day, even for just a week or two, is... challenging, at times. And whenever we cancel a posting, particularly if we do it unexpectedly, we get letters in about a 2:1 ratio, for and against. That is to say, we generally get some very kind messages along the lines of, "Hate to be without anything to read this morning, but I'm glad to see you're taking care of yourselves." But for every two of those, there's one that says, "What the hell kind of site is this? Why do you take so many days off?"

We are not sure if these people really don't know what kind of site it is; some folks seem to have the curious idea that we're overseeing a sweatshop full of grad students, or something along those lines. In fact, outside of guest contributions (like the one we have today), all of the content is produced by (Z), (V), (L) and (A), and that is ranked in order starting with who writes the most words per week. We have also made no secret of the fact that if (Z), in particular, runs into a late obstacle, it can be hard to course-correct, by virtue of being in the Pacific Time Zone. We try to hammer out some version of a rough draft, earlier in the day, but that is often not possible.

There is also another issue, one that runs contrary to our nature to admit, but one that exists nonetheless. There certainly COULD have been a post today, if (Z) had just stayed up working until 8:00 a.m. PT. The problem is that all-nighters like that tend to produce below-average posts and they can also be difficult to recover from, up to and including falling ill due to overwork. We, and in particular (Z), have spent the last year or so working to accept that sometimes the loss of 1-2 days' postings means the 10 postings after that will be much better.

One more thing: We actually don't take that many days off. We once had a run of over 1,500 days without missing one. And we still average north of 6 postings a week. That's very unusual for any site like this, particularly one with such a small staff.

Anyhow, we had two hints last week: (1) "We almost wrote an item about Robert Kennedy Jr. with a headline about his quackery," and (2) "For the headline about Mike Banks, we almost included a reference to Madison Cawthorn..."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader R.H. in Stow, MA:

This week's headlines all contain an animal sound hidden in a single word:

• Paging Elbridge Gerry, Part III: Following Virginia Uproar, What's Next for Democrats?
• Hope You Enjoyed Your Stay: Banks the Latest Trump Official to Disembark
• The Fourth Estate: Green Shoots in the Media World, Part II
• This Week in Schadenfreude: A Fool and His Moolah Are Soon Parted
• This Week in Freudenfreude: And Here You Thought Books Were Uncool

As for the hints, we have: (1) We almost wrote an item about Robert Kennedy Jr. with a headline about his quackery, and (2) For the headline about Mike Banks, we almost included a reference to Madison Cawthorn.

My first thought on reading the theme description was that somehow a dead bear would be involved.

No dead bear, but otherwise correct! Also, Crowd from this headline.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

M.M. in Charlottesville, VA M.K. in Seattle, WA S.G. in Durham, NC J.N. in Zionsville, IN G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN M.Z. in Sharon, MA J.F. in Fayetteville, NC D.D. in Bucks County, PA M.H. in Ottawa, ON, Canada G.S. in Basingstoke, England, UK D.L. in Springfield, IL D.L. in Uslar, Germany T.K. in Half Moon Bay, St. Kitts S.B. in Palm Harbor, FL R.E. in Birmingham, AL J.W. in Victoria, BC, Canada M.H. in Altea, Spain M.K. in Long Branch, NJ J.T. in Philadelphia, PA E.S. in Cincinnati, OH D.D. in Highland Park, IL A.E. in Cleveland, OH S.K. in Ardmore, PA J.C. in Johns Creek, GA A.D. in Gaithersburg, MD J.M. in Estes Park, CO P.B.J. in Delaware, OH M.T. in Simpsonville, SC H.M. in Minneapolis, MN T.T. in Conway, AR

H.B. in Santiago, Chile T.K. in Manchester, MO B.M. in Chico, CA K.M. in Ypsilanti, MI E.P. in Tillson, NY K.R. in Austin, TX M.S. in Canton, NY M.W. in Frederick, MD R.S. in Milan, OH D.P. in Mt. Rainier, MD A.W. in New York City, NY P.H. in Bozeman, MT B.F. in Nashville, TN A.W. in Brooklyn, NY D.K. in Bethesda, MD P.H. in Ft. Lauderdale, FL E.V. in Derry, NH M.L. in Everett, WA H.B. in Acton, MA J.C.B. in Seattle, WA W.V. in San Jacinto, CA P.A. in Redwood City, CA M.A. in Soquel, CA M.V. in Oak Park, IL D.B. in Pittsboro, NC P.J. in Quakertown, PA M.F. in Goshen, KY N.T. in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, France R.M. in Summerville, SC M.C. in Falls Church, VA

The 60th correct response was received at 7:59 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word per headline, and it's in the category Language, we suppose, although that's really not very helpful. For a hint, we'll say that you need zero external knowledge to solve this one. Everything you need is here.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line May 23 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: District of Columbia War Memorial Becomes an Arcade

Arcade games based on war have been around, well, since there have been arcade games. The game generally recognized as the first arcade game, 1971's Computer Space, was, in fact, a war game. There have also been plenty of war video games of a satirical nature, with 1989's Nuclear War a notable early example.

As of this week, we have a new entry in the satirical war games genre. It was "unveiled" in several custom-built cabinets that were placed at the D.C. War Memorial. Angry about the administration's regular use of video-game footage to promote and propagandize the Iran War, the new game is called Operation Epic Furious: Strait To Hell. In it, the player, playing as Donald Trump, must navigate various obstacles to try to win the war in Iran. This includes dealing with various fawning Cabinet officers and vice presidents, a battle with Pope Leo, and making sure to send out enough tweets on Truth Social.

It is rather hard to do justice to the game, though; it's much easier to try it for yourself. Traveling to D.C. is not practical (and the game cabinets have probably been removed by now), but the designers have also released the game online. If you do play it, do be careful about shaking Melania Trump's hand.

This war was so poorly conceived, from start to finish, that it's hard to think of anything that's come out of the Trump administration that more richly deserves to be mocked. Though, we have to admit, the slush fund is awfully close. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Colbert Did It His Way

Way back in July of last year, when Late Night with Stephen Colbert was canceled to please Donald Trump to save money, Colbert said he had no intention of changing what he does, and that he would continue speaking truth to power right up to the end. He was as good as his word, right up through the final episode, which aired Thursday.

The broadcast got the highest ratings of any late-night Colbert broadcast (and is second overall to an episode that aired right after the Super Bowl). That said, if any reader has not seen it, and would like to, CBS has posted the entire hour-long show here.

It was, on the whole, very well done. There was a running bit in which various celebrity guests (Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tim Meadows, etc.) thought they were going to be the final Colbert interview, and then were angry and/or disappointed when they learned that was not the case. There was also an extended set piece about a black hole that sucks "canceled" people into the void. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Andy Cohen, among others, made cameos and got sucked into the void. Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver and Seth Meyers also showed up, to explain how the void works, but did not get sucked in. Though, Kimmel noted, a similar void showed up on the set of his show for a few days last year.

The actual final guest was, in fact, Sir Paul McCartney. He and Colbert chatted a bit about how change is both annoying and inevitable. And McCartney also closed the show with "Hello, Goodbye," backed by a band that included Colbert on harmonies, Elvis Costello, and the Late Night house band. Eventually, the entire audience was allowed up on stage, along with the cast and crew, turning it into a several-hundred-person "Hello, Goodbye" sing-a-long.

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the Netflix is a Joke benefit for autism, and included the observation that "the thought that occurred even more frequently is that these are all fundamentally very decent people." The same thought occurred during the final Late Show episode (which, it should be noted, involved some of the exact same people). As with Conan O'Brien in his final Tonight Show episode, which also occurred under difficult circumstances, Colbert was nothing but positive. Somewhat ironically, given Donald Trump's seething hatred, the final show featured virtually no political talk. And the political talk it DID have came mostly from Sir Paul. It was particularly generous for the other late night hosts to show up to toast Colbert; the ones who air new episodes on Thursday nights specifically arranged for re-runs to air against the final Late Show, so that he would have the spotlight as much as is possible. Even if you are not inclined to watch the whole episode, at least consider watching the "Hello, Goodbye" segment, which is only 5 minutes or so:

Nothing but pure joy.

Colbert already has his next project lined up; he's going to work on a Lord of the Rings adaptation with his son. And though a podcast had not yet been announced, it seems inevitable. In any event, he had a very nice run during what looks to be the final era of late-night TV as we once knew it. Congrats to him and his crew.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

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