What to Know
Vince Vaughn thinks he knows why fewer people are tuning in to late-night TV. According to him, all of the shows are far too political and “agenda-based,” to the point that they all seem like “the same show.” During an appearance on Theo Von’s This Past Weekend podcast, Vaughn said, “They always blame technology, but the reality is, it’s the approach.”
And to a lot of critics online, Vaughn’s take feels very MAGA-aligned.
Vaughn said watching late-night TV makes him feel like he’s being “scolded” in a class.
Though he didn’t name names, it’s clear who the prominent late-night hosts are. Hosts like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers regularly bash President Donald Trump and share other political commentary. Trump often goes after late-night hosts because of this.
Vaughn has not openly said that he voted for Trump, but he has made headlines on more than one occasion due to his interactions with the president. Last year, he met with Trump in the Oval Office. In 2020, after a different interaction with Trump, Vaughn said, “I don’t have a party that I support and endorse,” per Variety.
And according to him, late-night TV feels like a political lecture. Von mentioned how late-night hosts, at one point, started exclusively making fun of “white redneck kind of people,” and then “everything tanked after that.” Vaughn seemed to agree with this take and went on to share his own thoughts on the topic.
He said podcasts are more popular now because of this very issue.
Because podcasts aren’t political? You might remember how Trump appeared on various podcasts during his 2024 presidential campaign, including Von’s (you know, the same podcast Vaughn was saying all of this stuff on). Besides, podcasters like Joe Rogan also exist and regularly talk about politics. But OK.
“The podcasts have gotten so much more popular with less production, less writers, less staff… because people want authenticity,” Vaughn said. “I think the talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda-based. They were gonna [evangelize] people to what they thought, you know what I mean?”
He continued, “So people just rejected it, because it didn’t feel authentic. It felt like they had an agenda. It stopped being funny and it started feeling like I was in a f—ing class I didn’t want to take, do you know what I mean? I’m getting scolded!”
According to him, all the shows are the same now.
And he thinks fewer people are watching because of it. “They all became the same show, and they all became so about politics and who’s good and who’s bad,” Vaughn said. He went on to imply that the hosts are kind of insufferable. “Imagine sitting next to someone like that on a f—ing plane,” he added. “Bro, you’d be like how do I get out of this f—ing seat?”
Discussing this interview on Reddit, people felt that Vaughn sounded extremely out of touch because of these comments, given that he seems to think politics is just a topic that he doesn’t need to engage with (and doesn’t seem to see the value in talking about).
After all, there’s a reason why a lot of people are focused on politics right now. One person questioned, “He understands there was a time when late night television made fun of other things than politics, then politics changed. Our politicians did dumb and crazy things that became the center of the news right?”
“So what you’re saying is you’re MAGA,” someone else concluded. “Disappointing but not surprising.” People also made jokes about the supposed “agenda” Vaughn mentioned while on the podcast.
“The only agenda is getting through the existential dread of daily life by poking fun at it and having a laugh…” someone wrote. “The agenda: preserving Democracy,” another person commented.
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