Vince Vaughn called out late-night hosts for having a political “agenda” on their shows.
“They never get it right,” the “Wedding Crashers” actor said on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast on Tuesday. “I think that talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda-based.”
Vaughn, 55, continued, “They were going to [evangelize] people to what they thought. You know what I mean? And so people just rejected it because it didn’t feel authentic. It felt like they had an agenda.”
The “Dodgeball” star said that late-night shows “stopped being funny” when they shifted too much towards political talk.
“It started feeling like I was f–king in a class I didn’t want to take,” he added. “I’m getting scolded.”
Vaughn didn’t name-drop any late-night hosts, though he appeared to be referring to Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, who are both outspoken critics of President Trump.
The businessman hasn’t appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” since 2015 and has never been on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which is ending in May.
The discussion about the state of late-night TV began when Von, 46, mentioned that the shows are struggling because the hosts only make fun of “white, red-neck people.”
That prompted Vaughn to recognize that podcasts have become far more successful than late-night shows because “people want authenticity.”
“If you look at what happened to the talk shows and why their ratings are low, it’s got only to do with the fact of what you just said, which is they all became the same show,” the “True Detective” actor said.
“And they all became so about their politics and who’s good and who’s bad,” Vaughn continued.
He joked, “And it’s like, imagine sitting next to someone like that on a f–king plane. You’d be like, bro, how do I get out of this f–king seat?”
Vaughn identified as a Libertarian in the past and is friendly with Trump, 79.
In April 2025, the White House shared a picture of Vaughn and the president in the Oval Office.
Three months earlier, Vaughn was spotted taking photos with fans at Trump’s Inaugural Starlight Ball.
On the podcast, Vaughn was asked if he’s ever felt “ostracized” by left-leaning Hollywood.
“I always got along with people and try to be honest about who I am,” Vaughn said. “But yeah, there’s times you felt like it would’ve been easier. It’s almost like a career move.”
Vaughn added that he “has opinions on both sides.”
“There’s s–t I don’t agree with at all, and then there’s s–t I don’t agree with at all,” he said, noting that “nobody wants to be told what to do.”
