Texas State Rep and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico was scheduled to be a guest on Monday night’s “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” but the FCC and CBS had other ideas — uh, no.
Comedian Stephen Colbert said his network’s lawyers barred him from having a Democratic lawmaker on his show, citing an old time FCC regulation called the “equal time rule” that applies to radio and broadcast television, dictating that programs that interview political candidates must provide equal time for opposing candidates.
There has always been an exemption for this rule for late night talk shows like Colbert’s — until FCC Chairman and Trump lackey Brendan Carr weaponized his position against anyone who criticized Trump. The implementation of Bari Weiss at CBS as news editor also hasn’t helped the cause.
Citing a January letter from newly appointed Chairman Carr, Colbert said the motivation for the move was political:
…Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were ‘motivated by partisan purposes.’ Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you. Because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself. Sir, ya smelt it ’cause ya dealt it. You are Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
Below is a clip of how Colbert addressed the situation on air, explaining the absence of guest Talarico, including the fact that he was not supposed to even mention the cancellation.
The full video of Monday’s monologue:
“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, OK? He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diaper.” — STEPHEN COLBERT
Without control of the digital airwaves, Colbert released the unseen Talarico interview on YouTube, seen below: