CBS Told Colbert He Can't Air An Interview! He Did It Anyway

You know who is not one of my guests tonight? That's Texas State Representative James Tallarico. 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.

CBS told Colbert that they couldn't air the Tallarico interview. Then they told him that he couldn't mention that he couldn't air the interview. And then he did that. And their excuse was the FCC's equal time rule,

which says that if you give airtime to a political candidate you have to give equal time to all their opponents. Except, big thing, that rule doesn't apply to talk shows. It never has. But Trump's FCC chair has threatened to change that exemption and has already launched an investigation into the view

for hosting the same guy, Texas Democrat, James Tallarico. And remember, in addition to other things, this is the same CBS that killed a 60 minutes report on migration detention centers a couple of months ago. There appears to be a pattern and Colbert, I mean, he's got nothing to lose. CBS is canceling the late show in May. And so he went on air and he did exactly what his network told him not to do. And honestly, Colbert having some backbone here,

it's an example of the good kind of trouble we need to see happening. Right, he even then released the Talarico interview Right, he even then released the Talarico interview on YouTube where all of a sudden,