{"id":44902,"date":"2025-11-19T15:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44902\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T15:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T15:58:07","slug":"stephen-colbert-riffs-on-wnyc-at-new-york-public-radio-fundraiser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44902\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Riffs On WNYC At New York Public Radio Fundraiser"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tStephen Colbert<\/a> and wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert opened up about early relationship stress at a New York Public Radio<\/a> fundraiser \u2014 namely who of the then long-distance couple would give up their local public radio station by moving halfway across the country.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe was full on WNYC<\/a> New York. The host of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a> said he \u201cdefended WBEZ Chicago to the best of my ability. A very reputable station. It was actually a source of some tension.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cShe did move to Chicago,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got married, and I immediately got a job back in New York, so we moved back, and I soon found out that I had been wrong. WBEZ is a fine station, but there\u2019s only one of it, and there\u2019s three WNYCs and WQXRs \u2013 AM, FM and WQXR, the trifecta,\u201d he said at the event Tuesday night (referring to the talk and classical music stations under the same umbrella) as the couple was honored alongside David Remnick<\/a>. longtime editor of The New Yorker and host of The New Yorker Radio Hour, and Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWNYC got you going in the morning with all the information and all the culture and all the things you needed to know about New York and our country \u2026 And, at the end of a long day, WQXR was there like a frosty mug of Xanax to calm you down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tEvelyn Colbert said the couple \u201cactually scheduled our days around WNYC. Stephen even taped a printout of the WNYC schedule to the back of our kitchen cabinet. And when we went to move our Honda Accord for alternate side of the street parking, we desperately tried to fit it between Morning Edition and Brian Lehrer, which was really stressful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSaid Colbert: \u201cNow. wherever we are in the world, on radio or streaming, our kitchens are still permanently tuned to WNYC. We make breakfast to Morning Edition, we make dinner to Marketplace. And if we find ourselves brushing our teeth to the sounds of Indian or Indonesian jazz gamelan, we know that\u2019s New Sounds, and we have stayed up past our bedtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fundraiser followed Congress rescinding $1.1 billion in federal funding to NPR, PBS and public stations<\/a> as part of President Donald Trump\u2019s spending cuts, putting many local stations at risk. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which administers the funds, is in the process of winding down operations.<\/p>\n

\n\tAround the same time, and with its sale to Skydance under review at the FCC, Paramount announced that The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u00a0would end its run in May 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tRemnick in his remarks called the Colberts \u201ctreasures\u201d and said, \u201cI\u2019m absolutely sure that when winter turns to spring and Stephen\u2019s unbelievable run on late night television comes to an unjust close, a ridiculous close, but a triumphal close, I\u2019m absolutely sure that he\u2019ll find another way to enrich our lives, To make us laugh and to make us a great deal smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe live in a dark time, a threatening time,\u201d Remnick said. When Vladimir Putin came to office in Russia, \u201cthey came after the comedians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey shut down a show called Kukly, a funny, political satirical show, and Putin first revealed his face by showing that he could not laugh at himself. This must sound quite familiar. It was not long after that, radio stations, television stations, newspapers and eventually, internet outlets began feeling not only the pressure, but were shut down,\u201d he said. We cannot kid ourselves about the era that we are living in. This is a test.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t On The Late Show last night, Colbert weighed in on the House\u2019s vote to release the Epstein files. \u201cOf course, this vote doesn\u2019t mean the Epstein files will be released right away. The bill now has to go to the Senate, where it may be amended. And if it\u2019s passed there, and amended, it would go back to the House, where it has to cross a river, and under the bridge is a troll, and to get by the troll, you have to answer his riddle: \u2018What walks on two cankles in the morning, rides a golf cart in the afternoon and is totally in the Epstein files?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNew York Public Radio\u2019s Executive Chair LaFontaine Oliver\u00a0said, \u201cmake no mistake, the elimination of federal funding was absolutely meant to bring about an ending. The end of unbiased journalism without fear or favor. The end of independent voices who raise a mirror so that we can see ourselves more clearly. And the end of mission driven institutions and individuals who work to protect and advance human dignity.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut if you\u2019ve been listening to the radio lately, you know what how we feel about that. You can defund public media<\/a>, you can cancel grants, you can zero out the line item. You can shut down CPB. But you can\u2019t defund the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert and wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert opened up about early relationship stress at a New York Public Radio…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25771,9,11,10,25772,23043,25773,25774],"class_list":["post-44902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-david-remnick","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-public-radio","tag-public-media","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-wnyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}