{"id":596790,"date":"2026-02-17T17:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/596790\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T17:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:26:12","slug":"cbs-blocks-late-show-from-interviewing-james-talarico-over-fcc-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/596790\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Blocks Late Show From Interviewing James Talarico Over FCC Fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe FCC<\/a>\u2018s proposed changes to the equal time rules for TV talk shows is officially taking its toll on late night.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS<\/a>\u2018 Late Show<\/a> host Stephen Colbert<\/a> says that lawyers for the network blocked him from interviewing Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico, citing the FCC\u2019s new guidance for political candidates on talk shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert opened his show Monday by explaining the situation. \u201cYou know who is not one of my guests tonight: That\u2019s Texas State Representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network\u2019s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,\u201d Colbert told the audience. \u201cThen I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on, and because my network clearly doesn\u2019t want us to talk about this, let\u2019s talk about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert went on to explain the FCC equal time guidance change, citing The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s story on the matter<\/a> and noting that historically talk shows like his (and ABC\u2019s Jimmy Kimmel Live and The View) had been exempt from the equal time rules, going back some 30 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn his letter, 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\u2019re chairman of the FCC, so FCC U because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir,\u201d Colbert said. \u201cSmelt it because you dealt it. You are Dutch ovening America\u2019s airwaves. Let\u2019s just call this what it is. Donald Trump\u2019s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe FCC has reportedly opened an investigation into ABC and The View over its own interview with Talerico, who is pursuing the U.S. Senate seat in Texas currently held by John Cornyn. Another Democrat, Jasmine Crockett, is also running for the nomination, with Ken Paxton and Wesley Hunt challenging Cornyn on the Republican side.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert then showed a clip of Carr explaining that if talk shows want to have on political candidates, they can do so only if they are not shown on broadcast TV.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI decided to take Brendan Carr\u2019s advice. I am going to interview James Talarico tonight, but it\u2019s not going to be on The Late Show, it\u2019s going to be on the Late Show\u2019s YouTube page,\u201d Colbert told the audience. \u201cThe Network says, I can\u2019t give you a URL or a QR code, but I promise you, if you go to our YouTube page, you\u2019ll find it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tYou can watch the interview below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is the party that ran against cancel culture, and now they\u2019re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read, and this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top,\u201d Talarico told Colbert. \u201cThey went after The View because I went on there. They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn\u2019t like. They went after you for telling the truth about Paramount\u2019s bribe to Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is worth noting that CBS has already canceled<\/a> The Late Show, which will have its final episode in May. CBS\u2019 parent company Paramount is also engaged in a pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery, trying to pry it away from a signed deal with Netflix, and has premised its argument to shareholders on a speedy regulatory approval process. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FCC\u2018s proposed changes to the equal time rules for TV talk shows is officially taking its toll…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":596791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[15328,171,36397,14165,13895,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-596790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cbs","tag-entertainment","tag-fcc","tag-late-show","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116087146755195431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}