Talkshow host Stephen Colbert has accused the Trump administration and CBS of censorship after he said the network told him not to air a television interview with a Texas Democrat running for Senate.
On his show, Colbert told viewers of the Late Show that network lawyers told him he was also prohibited from talking about their refusal to air his interview with James Talarico, a Texas state representative seeking his party’s nomination to challenge the Republican incumbent, John Cornyn, for a Senate seat in November.
“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said, stemming from a concern that it would trigger a legal requirement to provide equal access to Talarico’s campaign rivals.
In the end, the interview was instead broadcast on Colbert’s YouTube page, which is out of the remit of the Federal Communications Commission. The agency recently issued a guidance re-iterating that broadcast television networks need to abide by the equal time requirements that stem from the Communications Act of 1934, with daytime and late-night talkshows a particular focus of potential violations.
On Tuesday afternoon, CBS sought to address Colbert’s allegations about a corporate mandate not to broadcast Talarico.
“The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” the network said in a statement. “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”
Colbert has accused the Trump administration of censoring critics and has been particularly critical of FCC chairman Brendan Carr.
“Let’s just call this what it is,” he said Monday. “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”
The episode comes amid a renewed crackdown on media freedoms by the Trump administration, which in recent weeks has included an FBI raid on the home of a Washington Post reporter, and the arrest of Don Lemon, an independent journalist and former CNN host, covering a protest against immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
Earlier Tuesday, Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, criticized CBS for what she called “corporate capitulation in the face of this administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech.
“The FCC is powerless to impose restrictions on protected speech, and any attempt to intimidate broadcasters into self-censorship undermines both press freedom and public trust,” she said. “I once again urge broadcasters and their parent companies to stand firm against these unlawful pressures and continue exercising their constitutional right to speak freely and without government interference.”
Colbert’s popular show will end in May after CBS canceled it. The network is now under the control of David Ellison, the new owner and a Trump ally whose actions have raised questions about CBS’s independence. Earlier this month, the FCC, reportedly at Carr’s direction, opened an investigation into the ABC show The View, which interviewed Talarico on 2 February, for a possible violation of the equal time regulations.
The FCC has traditionally acknowledged a bona fide exemption for news interviews, but Carr decreed in January that the commission would no longer do so for talkshows, arguing that “broadcast television stations have an obligation to operate in the public interest – not in any narrow partisan, political interest”.
Colbert took exception to that interpretation on Monday, telling his audience: “Sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you. Because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself.”
Talarico, in the interview posted online, suggested the reported intervention by the FCC was prompted by Trump’s plunging popularity ratings, and the alleged subservience of CBS to the Republican president’s administration. The network paid Trump a $16m defamation settlement last July.
“I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” he said. “This is the party that ran against cancel culture, and now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read
“Corporate media executives are selling out the first amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians.”
Talarico is in a tight race with Jasmine Crockett, a fellow Texas representative, for the Democratic nomination to challenge Cornyn in the 3 November election.
