Puzzled Stephen Colbert says FCC monologue was totally approved by CBS's lawyers before air

“Now that decision, I want to be clear, is their right. Just like I have the right to talk about their decision on air,” he continues. “I was ready to let the whole thing go—until a few hours when my group chat blowed up because, without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release, this statement. Now, this is a surprisingly small piece of paper, considering how many butts it’s trying to cover.” After pointing out that the statement sounds like it was written by and for lawyers, Colbert continues, “Fellas, I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn’t need to be presented with that option. I’ve had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I could prove that to you, but the network won’t let me show you her picture without including her opponents, so I’ll have to show you this picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein instead.” 

“So we obeyed our network and put the interview on YouTube, where it’s gotten millions of views… I wish we could have put it on our show, where no one would have watched it,” Colbert says. “But here’s where I do want to tell the lawyers how to do their jobs. They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS’ lawyers, who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air, whether it’s about equal time or this image of frogs having sex. … In fact, between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage—I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers. Something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception. And I used that language. So, I don’t know what this is about. For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one. As I said last night in my interview with James Talarico—check it out, it’s on YouTube, it’s pretty good—I said to him, I’m grateful to have worked for CBS for the last seven years. I’m just so surprised that this giant, global corporation would not stand up to these bullies. Come on, you’re Paramount! No, you’re more than that. You’re Paramount+.” Then, Colbert throws out the lawyers’ statement with the help of a dog poop bag. You can watch the whole segment below.