For nearly a year now, Greg Gutfeld's eponymous Fox News late-night talk show, Gutfeld, has been at the top of the ratings — not just on cable, but also in comparison to the late-night television shows on NBC, ABC, CNN, and Fox Entertainment.  A longstanding conservative but only a recent convert to (at least admitting to) being a Republican, Gutfeld is a combination comic impresario, talk show host, and news commentator.  This latter credential is cemented in place by his plank-holder role at Fox News's The Five, a news discussion show with only rare guests and very little set-piece comedy.

While Gutfeld on Gutfeld will cover almost any topic — some serious, some hilariously off the wall, including sets worthy of The Onion or The Babylon Bee — he has consistently focused on a few prime targets, people in the public view who continually make his day through their over-the-top activities. 

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Among those most heavily dissed by the Gut were CNN's chief legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin; Congresswoman Liz Cheney; and CNN's media critic and host of Sunday's Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter.  Rarely has a week has gone by that these three weren't mentioned at least a few times.  More often, one or more of them were featured on a daily basis.

Now they're all history, and America wants to know: "What will Gutfeld talk about now?" 

More pressing, as one observer close to Gutfeld's audience — speaking anonymously, because he is not authorized to speak for Gutfeld — said, "[p]ublicly flatulent California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell and antediluvian House majority leader Nancy Pelosi — as well as Biden and Harris and their family members — seem to be all that's left of Gutfeld's once industry-leading stable of topics.  Or targets.  Is that going to be enough?"

What happened to these hardcore subject matter sources who made the Gutfeld show so dominant in late-night?  Clearly, it must have been a confluence of evil, or, as another industry observer observed, proof that bad news comes in threes.

First, Toobin.  This longtime supposed legal expert was recently banished from CNN after having been caught practicing onanism while on a Zoom call in 2020.  He'd been suspended, but earlier this year, he was returned to the fold — all's forgiven — by a CNN that literally has no standards.  Last Friday, he quietly resigned, having read the new CNN management's writing on the wall.  So he's now off the table.

Then there was Liz Cheney, the (barely still) Republican anti-Trumper, January 6 hearing co-host, and failed congressional candidate.  She lost renomination by a landslide in a Wyoming primary vote.  Having built her miscarried political career around hating Trump, she's now talking about being the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln, even while preparing to run for president.  In which party she'd run isn't clear, but regardless, running for president after losing your seat in Congress is admittedly not the usual path on which an ambitious politician can move forward.  Perhaps instead of comparing herself to Lincoln, she should have said she's the (allegedly) Republican clone of failed Texas candidate for damn near everything, Beto O'Rourke.

Losing those two really robbed Gutfeld of some of Gutfeld's best material.  Then along came the trifecta, the hat trick, the three-strikes-and-you're-out for the Gut.  Earlier this week, the ever-rotund Brian Stelter was fired from CNN, with almost no notice — and, to make things worse, his staff was fired, too.  In a scorched-earth attempt to change its stripes, CNN took Reliable Sources off the air.  Toobin was at least allowed to resign, but Stelter was canned by CNN's new CEO, who actually seems to be living up to his plan to clean-sweep CNN of all biased über-liberal on-air "talent" and staff.  Apparently, he hasn't gotten the memo quite yet — at CNN, there is nobody, either on-air or on-staff, who is anything but a biased über-liberal.

But that's their problem.  Greg Gutfeld's problem is more basic.  Whom else is he going to lampoon on the way to another ratings triumph?  A comic is only as good as his material.  Pelosi may be out as majority leader after November's election.  Biden and Harris have only a skosh more than two years left.  And Swalwell?  He's been seeing his gastroenterologist and is reportedly feeling much better. 

So what's a top-rated late-night host to do?

Thomas Lifson adds: The Democrats' ongoing mass psychosis will keep the supply of targets more than adequate.

Ned Barnett is a longtime fan of both Gutfeld and Gutfeld.  He and his wife Lynn also loved RedEye, Gutfeld's earliest CNN triumph.  While engaged and living fifteen hundred miles apart, they'd watch the show together, then talk on the phone through the middle of the night, laughing over his bizarre humor.  Married but self-employed, they've shared The Five in person since day one, as they do with Gutfeld.  When not contributing to conservative political thought on American Thinker, Barnett — the author of 40 published books — works with authors as a ghostwriter, writing coach, editor, self-publishing guide, and book marketer.  To reach him, Barnett can be found at nedbarnett51@gmail.com or 702-561-1167.