Stephen Colbert says CBS blocked an interview with Democratic Representative James Talarico
Late night host Stephen Colbert said his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was pulled from Monday night’s broadcast over fears it would violate the Trump administration’s directive to give equal time to political candidates.
The issue came just hours before early voting opened Tuesday in the Texas primary, which includes bipartisan Senate races.
“He should have been here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we would not have him on the radio,” Colbert said on his show. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“Then I was told, one way or another, that I couldn’t just live with him, I couldn’t say that I didn’t have him. And because my network doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
CBS disputed Colbert’s account, denying that his show was told it could not interview Talarico. Instead, CBS said on Tuesday, “The show has been given legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC’s equal-time rule.”
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Talarico is in a spirited race for the Democratic nomination as media outlets scramble to change broadcast guidelines, issued under the Trump administration, that govern how they interview political candidates. His main opponent is US Attorney Jasmine Crockett, and both have built national profiles through malicious social media clips.
On the Republican side, Sen. Four-term incumbent John Cornyn is facing the political battle of his career against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and US Attorney Wesley Hunt. Paxton ramped up his campaign with a Monday night rally in Tyler, east Texas.
The FCC warned talk show operators
Talarico posted a nearly minute-long clip of his interview with Colbert to X, calling it “the interview Donald Trump didn’t want to see.” He plans to hold a Tuesday evening meeting in Austin.
“I think Donald Trump is worried that we’re going to turn Texas over,” Talarico said in a statement. “This is the most dangerous kind of cultural cancellation, the kind that comes from above.”
Broadcast networks are required to give equal time to political candidates, but that rule has not traditionally been applied to talk shows. In January, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued new guidelines warning daytime and nighttime hosts that they need to give political candidates equal time, with FCC chairman Brendan Carr questioning the exemption from the talk show and saying the hosts were “motivated by partisanship.”
“The FCC has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show currently on the air would qualify for the factual news exemption,” the public notice said.
In his remarks, Colbert noted that the equal time provision applies to broadcast but not broadcast platforms. Afterward, his nearly 15-minute interview with Talarico was posted on Colbert’s show’s YouTube page, with the host clearly noting that the segment was only available online and not on air.
Texas polls start with Colbert on his way out
The FCC did not immediately respond Tuesday to a message seeking comment.
But Carr, who was appointed by Trump to lead the agency last year, has often criticized the network’s talk shows, suggesting last year that ABC should be investigated. Watching – his hosts who often criticize Trump – about the release could be “beneficial.”
Colbert’s days in his hosting chair are limited, following CBS’s announcement last year that it was canceling his show in May for financial reasons, closing a decades-old TV station in a changing media landscape.
But the timing of that announcement — three days after Colbert criticized a deal between Trump and Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, 60 Minutes The story – led to two US senators publicly questioning the motives behind the move, which helped take one of Trump’s most vocal and persistent late-night critics off the air.
US President Donald Trump has suggested that networks that ‘give him only bad press’ should have their licenses suspended. This comes after ABC previously aired Jimmy Kimmel Live! after pressure from Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr.
Meanwhile, Talarico and Crockett hope to avoid impeachment on May 26 by capturing at least 50 percent of the Democratic Alliance vote in the March 3 election. Paxton, too, is trying to avoid running, and until Friday, his only ad was a low-key campaign that attacked Hunt.
Hunt is trying to appeal to voters who want an alternative to Cornyn but isn’t comfortable with Paxton. The Texas attorney general defeated a 2023 impeachment trial on corruption charges and reached a plea deal to end a long-running securities fraud case but now faces a contentious divorce over adultery allegations.
Hunt released a new ad on Tuesday, featuring photos of himself and Trump, slamming Cornyn for his long political career and declaring, “This is our time to end the status quo.”
But Paxton’s campaign has been airing its own ad featuring video clips of her and Trump since Friday. The president has not approved anyone since Monday. Paxton on Monday night portrayed Cornyn as a creature of Washington, adding, “I am not their person and I will never be their person.”
The GOP is nervous about Paxton
Early polls have Paxton looking like the front-runner for the GOP, even though Cornyn’s campaign and affiliated PACs have spent more than $54 million on television advertising since last year, according to ad tracking service AdImpact. Paxton believes he is better known than Cornyn.
Republican Senate leaders in Washington say Paxton as the GOP nominee will need hundreds of millions of dollars to defend in the general election than Cornyn would – and that the party should not spend in an area where Trump is carried by more than 13 percentage points.
Cornyn addressed those concerns at Tuesday’s meeting in Austin.
“We will pay the price for having an albatross like our corrupt attorney around our neck,” he said. “It will affect everyone on the ballot.”
