The show's over: Stephen Colbert is cancelled ... and so is satire in America

Jacob Weisberg unpicks the sorry tale behind a court case, the payment of $16m to Trump's future library and the end of The Late Show

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Donald Trump has faced a thousand biting critics but only one great satirist: the late-night television host Stephen Colbert. With the CBS network's announcement last week that it is cancelling Colbert's programme, it is, alas, the president who appears to be having the last laugh.

It was in many ways a death foretold. Earlier this month, Paramount, which owns CBS, betrayed its staff - along with the rest of US journalism - by agreeing to pay Trump $16m in a legal settlement. Trump had sought $20bn in damages over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with former vice president Kamala Harris that aired before last November's election. The case was meritless. As a transcript proved, Trump's claim that CBS modified an answer from Harris about Israel to make her sound more coherent was completely specious.

An excerpt from the interview was merely cut into two shorter pieces to air on different programmes. Of course, from a legal as opposed to an ethical point of view, it wouldn't have mattered if 60 Minutes had tidied Harris's response. With the First Amendment still in force, there was no basis for a legal claim.

Yet Paramount agreed to pay up, giving the funds to Trump's future presidential library. It did so, many believe, simply because Brendan Carr, whom Trump appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), was holding hostage its $8bn sale to entertainment company Skydance until a settlement was reached. Now the sale can proceed. (Skydance is controlled by David Ellison, the son of software mogul Larry Ellison.)