Stephen Colbert went public Monday night with a striking accusation against his own network: that CBS lawyers had barred him from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate, in a preemptive bow to FCC pressure over the agency’s push to apply its “equal time” rule to late-night talk shows.
Colbert revealed that the network’s legal team had called “The Late Show” staff directly and told them “in no uncertain terms” the interview could not be broadcast. He had additionally been instructed not to raise the matter on air. He then proceeded to do precisely the opposite.
Walking his audience through the FCC’s “equal time” rule – which requires broadcast networks to provide opposing political candidates equivalent airtime – Colbert noted that talk shows had long benefited from an exemption to that requirement. “There’s long been an exception for this rule, an exception for news interviews and talk show interviews with politicians,” he said. “That’s crucial. How else were voters supposed to know back in ’92 that Bill Clinton sucked at saxophone?”
The host reserved particular scorn for FCC chair Brendan Carr, whom he described as a “smug bowling pin,” over a Jan. 21 letter in which Carr suggested the exemption should no longer apply to programs he characterized as being “motivated by partisan purposes.” Colbert addressed the Trump-appointed regulator directly: “FCC you… because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir. Hey, you smelt it ’cause you dealt it. You are Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves.”
Colbert also pointed out what he characterized as a glaring inconsistency in Carr’s approach – noting that while the FCC chair was targeting late-night talk shows, he had made clear that right-wing talk radio would not be subject to the equal time notice. “I get this part,” Colbert said. “You can’t get rid of talk radio. What else would your angriest uncle do in traffic? Talk to your saddest aunt?”
Crucially, Colbert noted that Carr had not yet formally eliminated the exemption – making CBS’s decision to act as though he had a unilateral one. “He hasn’t done away with it yet, but my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had,” he said. As the studio audience booed, Colbert offered a sardonic explanation for the network’s posture – saying the decision was made “for purely financial reasons,” a wry echo of the rationale CBS cited when it canceled “The Late Show.”
Colbert placed the FCC’s moves within a broader pattern of political pressure. “Let’s just call this what it is. Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV. He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers. So it’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.” Kimmel has also publicly pushed back against the proposed rule change.
When Carr suggested that hosts unwilling to comply could migrate to “a cable channel or podcast or a streaming service,” Colbert was withering: “Great idea. A man whose job is to regulate broadcast TV suggests everyone just leave broadcast TV. It’s like when Arby’s changed their slogan to ‘Arby’s, would it kill you to eat a salad?’”
He then announced he would conduct the Talarico interview anyway – just not on the CBS broadcast. The conversation would instead air on “The Late Show” YouTube channel after the show, though Colbert noted the network would not permit him to share a URL or QR code directing viewers there.
The restrictions went further than just barring the interview itself. Colbert revealed he was also prohibited from showing any image of Talarico – including photographs or even drawings – under FCC rules forbidding any candidate appearance “by voice or picture.” He proceeded to display a stock photo the show had found by Googling “not James Talarico,” and then held up a drawing he claimed, for legal reasons, he could not confirm was or was not a likeness of the candidate – which turned out to resemble Snoopy.
