Last week, the FCC reportedly began following through on their threats to start poking around at The View after the talk show hosted Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico. Apparently CBS, despite their thirst for scoops, wanted desperately to avoid the same potential smoke. “You know who’s not here tonight? That’s Texas state rep James Talarico,” Stephen Colbert said on The Late Show last night. “He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers directly that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then, I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I couldn’t mention me not having him on. And, because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
Talking about that good ol’ equal time rule, Colbert joked, “It’s the FCC’s most time honored rule, after no nipples at the Super Bowl.” He went on, “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, okay? He’s like a toddler with too much screen time; he gets cranky and drops a load in his diaper. So, it’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.” Since FCC head Brendan Carr had previously said they should conduct these interviews elsewhere, Colbert said that he’d be posting the interview with Talarico on The Late Show‘s YouTube page, which he did do. “The network says I can’t give you a URL or a QR code, but I promise you, you go to our YouTube page, you’ll find it.” (You can also find it here.)
As Colbert goes on to point out, Carr’s jurisdiction is not just broadcast TV but radio, but has declined to enforce any equal time rules that might apply to the vast ecosystem of right-wing talk radio. “I get this part, it makes sense. You can’t get rid of talk radio. What else would your angriest uncle do in traffic? Talk to your saddest aunt?” Colbert quipped. In any case, the exception for late night talk shows hasn’t been done away with yet. “But my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had. But ladies and gentlemen, I want to assure you, that this decision is for purely financial reasons.” You can watch the whole segment below.
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