PoliticsDonald Trump's Late-Night Critics Face Off in Newly Merged Emmy Race
Donald Trump’s late-night critics were nominated in this year's Emmy Awards.
July 11 2026, Published 6:27 a.m. ET
President Donald Trump’s late-night foils are now competing against each other for Emmy recognition.
The Television Academy’s newly merged Outstanding Variety Series category brings together The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live, setting up a race stacked with some of the president’s most persistent TV critics.
The category combines the former talk and scripted variety races, meaning shows that previously competed in separate lanes are now grouped together.
A New Late-Night Showdown
Jimmy Kimmel is competing against fellow late-night hosts.
Last year, Colbert, Kimmel and Stewart faced off for Outstanding Talk Series, with The Late Show ultimately winning. Oliver, meanwhile, beat SNL for the third time in the scripted variety category.
This year, all five shows are in the same field. But there is another twist: the new category is classified as an area award, which means more than one show could win. Instead of picking a single winner, voters evaluate each program individually. Any nominee that receives 90 percent “yes” votes can receive an Emmy.
That makes the race less of a traditional head-to-head contest and more of a referendum on late-night television at a politically charged moment.
Donald Trump’s TV Targets
The nominated shows have drawn President Donald Trump's criticism.
Each of the nominated shows has drawn Trump’s anger during his second term, but The Late Show is the only one that has been canceled. CBS parent company Paramount has said the decision to end the show was “purely financial.”
The cancellation has given Colbert’s final Emmy run extra weight. It also places his show alongside programs that have continued making Trump a regular subject, including Kimmel, Stewart, Oliver and SNL.
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'The Late Show' had remained the only nominated program canceled.
The new category arrives after a year in which late-night comedy has remained tangled in arguments over politics, pressure and speech.
Comedy as Cultural Resistance
Political comedy remained a major Emmy focus.
“Recognizing comedy shows like these is a symbolic gesture that reinforces the significance of free speech and the importance of cultural resistance to forces that wish to impede it,” said Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University.
He said the nominations also speak to what late-night represents during political conflict.
“These awards remind audiences that free speech is fragile,” he added, “and that it requires active support to protect it.”
