Stephen Colbert did something pretty incredible tonight — going against CBS’ wishes and discussing why his interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico would not be airing on “The Late Show,” even though network lawyers warned him not to.
“You know you know who is not one of my guests tonight? That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico,” Colbert started off. “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. Then 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’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
He continued: “So, you’ve you might have heard of this thing called the equal time rule. It’s an old FCC rule that applies only to radio and broadcast television, not cable or streaming, that says if a show has a candidate on during an election, they have to have all that candidates’ opponents on as well. It’s the FCC’s most time honored rule right after no nipples at the Super Bowl.”
As Colbert continued, he explained that there has “long been an exception for this rule,” especially for talk show interviews with politicians.
“But on January 21st of this year, a letter was released by FCC chairman and smug bowling pin Brendan Carr,” Colbert added. “In this 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’re chairman of the FCC. So, FCCU, because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir. Hey, you smelt it cuz you dealt it.”
Colbert then pivoted to Trump and his censorship quest: “He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers. So, it’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.”
Colbert then said that he still interviewed Talarico, and that the full conversation is on YouTube.
“The network says I can’t give you URL or a QR code, but I promise you if you go to our YouTube page, you’ll find it,” he said.
Colbert also shared that he wasn’t even allowed to show any pictures of Talarico on the broadcast, quipping, “That’s a stock photo we found when we Googled ‘not James Talarico.’”