South Park is back, and the show’s creators are going full force on their jabs at the Trump administration. Three episodes in, the show’s world-building centers fully around President Donald Trump and the colorful characters in his administration, with scathing parodies of figures like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance.
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South Park is doing what the rest of the media won’t
While Matt Stone and Trey Parker are known for directing crude jokes at Democrats and Republicans alike, South Park’s latest season is already hitting record ratings with an especially unrestrained critique of the Trump administration. Since the new season launched, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers has tried to dismiss the jabs, saying that South Park “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”
South Park’s latest season is launching in the context of interesting times for Comedy Central’s parent company, Paramount Pictures. Paramount has been under intense scrutiny from the Trump administration after settling a lawsuit with the Trump administration over their news magazine show 60 Minutes. Since then, the Trump administration oversaw Paramount’s deal with Skydance, which requires CBS to hire an ombudsman to root out “bias” at the network.
Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Brian Stelter, chief media analyst at CNN, about how South Park’s latest season is taking aim at the Trump administration, and how the show’s creators are navigating the context of their parent company seemingly buckling under the Trump administration’s scrutiny.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a fan of South Park?
I would call myself a passive South Park fan. If I saw it on Comedy Central, I would enjoy it. But now, in the past month, I am an active fan. I’m seeking out new episodes.This show has defied the odds. It’s almost 30 years old and suddenly more relevant than ever.
How did it defy the odds?
By speaking truth to the ultimate power right now. You know, the creators of South Park have always hated bullies, and they seem to believe Trump is the biggest bully of them all. The very premise of the first episode of this new season is about Trump targeting the media.The character Eric Cartman is angry that NPR has been forced off the air. From the very first seconds of the new season, you know that this show has something to say.
You also see how South Park Elementary is being transformed due to Trump’s actions. This is a dramatic exaggeration of what’s happening in real life, but it is true. When Trump is introduced in the show, you see him fighting with the Prime Minister of Canada over tariffs. But most memorably you see him getting in bed with Satan.
I’m gonna use some words I don’t typically use on the show right now to describe that particular scene, because Trump derobes. Before you even see who he is about to get into bed with, we see that he has a micro penis. How do they follow that up?
The most ruthless jokes in the second episode were about Kristi Noem. They were about that old scandal involving her shooting a dog on her farm. You saw her over and over again in this episode shooting at dogs. This episode was really personal in the way it targeted Noem, showing her face maybe falling apart, pushing this idea that she was overusing Botox or other face fillers. Also, there’s the idea that she cares so much about photo ops and PR, she’s always out there dressing up in various outfits, posing for photos and videos. And as always, there are elements of truth to these critiques or satires.
It is true that Noem has tried really hard to be front and center, very visible, playing to the cameras, going out on tours, appearing in the field, showing that she’s doing the work, so to speak.
Noem did not take this episode in stride. She said, “It’s so lazy to make fun of women and how they look.” For Noem, this was personal, this was ugly. And she wanted to be on the record about it.
Is this the first time this show has gone after Donald Trump and his administration?
No, but it is by far the most direct, the most vicious. Back during Trump’s first term in office, there was this storyline where one of the teachers at the school, Mr. Garrison, was becoming president and over time acting more and more Trump-like. This served as a way for the creators of South Park to ridicule Trump and to speak out about some of his behaviors and conduct in the first term. But this was not nearly as direct or aggressive as what we’re seeing now.
I guess it’s not that big a surprise that South Park would go after Donald Trump when he is Donald Trumping harder than he is ever Donald Trumped before.
Yes.
But they’re not even sparing their parent company in these new episodes, right?
Matt and Trey are like a lot of creators in that they love to poke fun at the parent company when they can. The timing of this new season has been really extraordinary because Paramount was in the final days of this protracted, politically tortured merger approval process when the new season premiered.
So you literally had this anti-Trump episode, sticking it to the administration, putting the president in bed with Satan, airing on cable at the same time that the administration is having to review and approve this merger.
The second episode of the season aired on a Wednesday, and then on a Thursday the new Paramount took shape. The merged company, Paramount and Skydance, came together. There was this big formal press conference on Thursday around lunchtime in New York City and the new CEO David Ellison took questions from media reporters about his grand hopes and dreams about this new company.
I said to him, “So what about this South Park problem? You know, what are you gonna do about this problem? Do you view it as a problem?” Ellison’s response was really telling. He started out by saying he’s a huge fan of the show. He’s been a fan of South Park for his entire adult life. He’s 42, and he then went on to praise Matt and Trey as being really unique, talented creators. And he said to me, they are equal opportunity offenders, and they always have been.
So I think Ellison was saying: They’re not just targeting Trump because they’re a bunch of lefties who wanna attack the Republicans. They have always called out people on the left and on the right. They’re equal opportunity offenders. I think he was trying to differentiate South Park from late night shows like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which was recently canceled. I think he was trying to say, these two creators are special. They are one of a kind, and they’re gonna be protected by Paramount.
Obviously the other context here is the new owners of Paramount had just struck a five-year deal to exclusively stream South Park on the Paramount Plus streaming service. This five-year deal is worth well over a billion dollars. For the creators of South Park and for their production company, this is a huge vote of confidence in South Park as a tent pole of the future of Paramount. The whole idea makes a lot of sense when you think about it. South Park has a library of 325 episodes going back to the 1990s. This is a really valuable library in the streaming era, because people like to go back and watch episodes from 10 or 20 years ago. These episodes have a really long shelf life. That’s why Paramount was willing to fork over so much cash.
I think this might be where some people get confused, because you’ve got everyone from Brown University to Meta to CBS and Paramount settling with the president, making donations to the president’s inaugural committee. And then you’ve got Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who work for CBS or do business with Paramount Plus, not only going for the president, not only making fun of his administration, his own manhood, but making literally a billion dollars while doing it. How are they able to get away with something that seemingly no one else is right now?
This might be a case of business actually trumping politics. For the Paramount Plus streaming service, loud franchises like South Park are crucial. They’re more important now than they were 10 years ago, and they might even be more important 10 years from now.
They are the foundation of the house that David Ellison’s trying to build. and he can’t compromise. The difference here between South Park and Stephen Colbert is that The Late Show was losing money. So, yeah, Stephen Colbert is a staunch critic of President Trump, one of the loudest Trump critics on TV. He’s been canceled. A lot of his fans worry it’s for political reasons. CBS says it’s purely for financial reasons, and in a way, South Park actually affirms the CBS claim.
Paramount keeps putting out press releases touting how well South Park is doing. The show is beating some of its very old records on cable. But more importantly, if you add up the cable audience and the streaming audience, you’re seeing 5, 6, 7 million viewers tuning in for these new episodes. Those are the kinds of numbers that almost any creator would kill for, certainly creators of animated comedies.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — — New quarterback Tommy Castellanos led a punishing rushing attack for Florida State with 78 yards and a touchdown as the Seminoles stunned No. 8 Alabama 31-17 on Saturday, ending the Crimson Tide’s streak of 23 straight wins in season openers.
Coming off a 2-10 season, Florida State handed a crushing setback to Alabama, which was viewed as a College Football Playoff contender under second-year coach Kalen DeBoer.
Students and fans swarmed the field at Doak Campbell Stadium to celebrate the upset by the Seminoles, who were 13 1/2-point underdogs according to Sportsbook.
Under new offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn — who spent eight seasons as Auburn’s head coach — Florida State was physical from the start, finishing with 230 rushing yards and averaging 4.7 yards per carry. The Seminoles averaged just 89.9 yards during their disastrous 2024 season.
The Crimson Tide had not dropped a season opener since losing 20-17 to UCLA in 2001 under Dennis Franchione, and this defeat will ratchet up the pressure on DeBoer from the demanding Tuscaloosa faithful. His predecessor, Nick Saban, led Alabama to six national titles.
DeBoer fell to 6-4 against unranked teams at Alabama; Saban went 124-4 in such games.
Alabama couldn’t solve Florida State’s defense, finishing with 87 rushing yards on 29 carries. Florida State halted Alabama three times on fourth down, the final time coming with 5:39 to go.
Castellanos, a Boston College transfer, had 16 carries while no one else had more than seven rushing attempts for the Seminoles. He also completed 9 of 14 passes for 152 yards as Florida State defeated its first ranked opponent since knocking off No. 19 Louisville in the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
Micahi Danzy, Caziah Holmes and Gavin Sawchuk also had rushing touchdowns for Florida State.
Ty Simpson completed 23 of 43 passes for 254 yards and two touchdowns in his Alabama debut. Germie Bernard led Alabama with eight catches for 146 yards.
Alabama: The Crimson Tide scored on an opening drive that went 8 minutes, 50 seconds, but struggled to sustain drives the rest of the afternoon.
Florida State: The Seminoles bounced back on a big stage as coach Mike Norvell began his sixth season by picking up a fifth win over a Southeastern Conference team.
Alabama hosts Louisiana-Monroe next Saturday.
Florida State hosts East Texas A&M next Saturday.
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Alabama vs. Florida State live updates: Crimson Tide, Seminoles battle in clash of marquee brands
One of the biggest nonconference clashes of Week 1 features No. 8 Alabama making its first-ever trip to Tallahassee, Florida, squaring off against a Florida State team that is looking to erase the disappointment of 2024 with a strong performance from a retooled Seminoles roster.
Alabama enters the 2025 with its own bounce-back motivations after last year’s 9-4 finish fell short of expectations for Year 1 under Kalen DeBoer. After inheriting Nick Saban’s program, DeBoer fell just short of the 12-team College Football Playoff in part because of multiple losses as a double-digit favorite. That’s the same favorite status the Crimson Tide carry into this season-opening road tilt, providing a great opportunity for Alabama to start its playoff march by reversing that trend.
For Florida State, there’s a lot at stake in terms of proving that last season’s stunning collapse was just a blip on the radar. After going 13-1 in 2023, Mike Norvell’s team started the season in the top 10 and proceeded to go 2-10. Norvell made new hires at offensive coordinator (Gus Malzahn) and defensive coordinator (Tony White) and brings in a host of transfer talent, including quarterback Tommy Castellanos, to try and flip the script and get the program back on track.
It’s a huge statement spot for both teams in what should be an electric environment in a renovated Doak Campbell Stadium.
Keep it locked here as CBS Sports provides you with live updates, highlights and analysis as Alabama battles Florida State to open the 2025 season in Week 1.
Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”
“Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders wrote.
Sanders pointed to the White House’s firing of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as four other top CDC officials who resigned in protest this week after Monarez “refused to act as a rubber stamp” for Kennedy’s “dangerous policies”.
“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote.
“Against the overwhelming body of evidence within medicine and science, what are secretary Kennedy’s views? … He has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’ … Who supports secretary Kennedy’s views? Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.”
Sanders went on: “The reality is that secretary Kennedy has profited from and built a career on sowing mistrust in vaccines. Now, as head of [the Department of Health and Human Services] he is using his authority to launch a full-blown war on science, on public health and on truth itself.”
Pointing to what he described as “our broken health care system”, Sanders said that Kennedy’s repeated attacks against science and vaccines will make it more difficult for Americans to obtain lifesaving vaccines.
“Already, the Trump administration has effectively taken away Covid vaccines from many healthy younger adults and kids, unless they fight their way through our broken health care system. This means more doctor’s visits, more bureaucracy and more people paying higher out-of-pocket costs – if they can manage to get a vaccine at all,” he wrote.
The senator warned that Kennedy’s next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, which involves a list of recommended vaccines for children to protect them from diseases including measles, chickenpox and polio.
“The danger here is that diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm,” Sanders said.
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In recent days, the Trump administration has faced rare bipartisan pushback following its firing of Monarez, which came amid steep budget cuts to the CDC’s work as well as growing concerns of political interference.
Meanwhile, Kennedy has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been lambasted in response by experts and lawmakers alike.
Since he assumed leadership over the health department, Kennedy – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – has fired health agency workers and entertained conspiracy theories. Last week, more than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter in which they criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.
The health agency workers went on to accuse the health secretary of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information”.
The letter comes after a deadly shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, when a 30-year-old gunman fired more than 180 rounds into the buildings, killing a police officer before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooter had been struggling with mental health issues and was influenced by misinformation that led him to believe the Covid-19 vaccine was making him sick, according to the gunman’s father.
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