Pulled Colbert-Talarico interview: CBS responds to backlash

Late show host Stephen Colbert taped an interview with Texas State Representative James Tallarico. He's a Democratic candidate in the Senate primary in Texas. But Colbert says CBS's lawyers stepped in before the interview that they pre-taped could actually air on broadcast television. 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, 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. Colbert says this all stems from recent threats from the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission, known as the FCC for background. There is an old regulation known as the equal time provision, which would require broadcast networks to give equal airtime to all legally qualified candidates for public office, meaning

if one is featured, his or her rivals have to be given the same amount of time, equal time. There are big exemptions for news coverage. And for the past two decades, that exemption has also been applied to late night and daytime talk shows. This all started in 2006 when the FCC officially

gave that exemption to the interview segments of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That was a break from the previous 1960 ruling by the FCC about The Tonight Show with Jack Parr. Now, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued guidance last month cautioning networks that regardless of the Leno ruling from 2006, daytime and late night TV talk shows will not be automatically

considered bona fide news programs exempt from equal time rules, particularly if in Carr's view, the program is a quote, program that is motivated by partisan purposes, unquote, which based on past editorial comments by Carr seems to be a fairly expansive group of shows. So we should note Carr is also not applying

the equal time rule to talk radio, which tends to tilt rightward. Colbert on his show addressed Brendan Carr directly. Well, sir, you're chairman of the FCC, so FCC you. Let's just call this what it is. Donald Trump's administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV. Now we should note that this afternoon CBS issued a statement saying quote the late show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting in the interview with rep

James Tallarico. The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates including representative 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 unquote. CBS is referring to the equal time rule

only applying to broadcast. So Colbert show posted the Tallarico interview on YouTube. In this interview that never saw the light of day on broadcast television, Tallarico accused Republicans and the Trump administration of perpetuating their own version of cancel culture.

They went after the view because I went on there. They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn't like. They went after you for telling the truth about Paramount's bribe to Donald Trump.

You'll remember last year the previous owners of CBS, Paramount, paid $16 million to resolve an extraordinary lawsuit filed by Trump over a 60-minute news report, an interview with Kamala Harris. Some Democratic senators and critics called the payment by Paramount a 60-minute news report, an interview with Kamala Harris. Some Democratic senators and critics called the payment by Paramount a bribe or a backdoor deal so Paramount could get Trump administration approval,

FCC approval, for the Skydance Media merger. The president denied that the 60-minute settlement had anything to do with his administration's approval of the merger. We should note the current owners of Paramount want to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which is our parent company here at CNN. Let's

discuss with Bill Carter and Jonah Goldberg, editor of the Dispatch Bill. Do you think the CBS lawyers were overreacting by however aggressively they gave that guidance to Stephen Colbert about giving Tolerico's opponents, or do you think their concerns are legitimate given how the FCC has been behaving

since Brendan Carr took over?

Well, you know, Carr didn't put this into effect. He said it could happen, and they said to, even in their statement, that this could trigger the equal term rule. So they were saying sort of in statement that this could trigger the equal time rule. So they were saying sort of in advance this could happen. And really if you're in Colbert's position, what do you take from that?

You take from that they're telling you what to do. They've already canceled you. They've already said what they think about your free speech rights. So I think he was obviously interpreting it that way. And it's legalese probably, but it sounds to me like there was a little intimidation involved.

So were they overreacting? I mean, it's interesting because Tallarico is running in a primary against another Democrat. So it doesn't seem like, you

know, triggering the rule to have Jasmine Crocodile. She's already been on Colbert. It's not like that would have been such a major event, but it just does seem like they wanted to lay down the rules now because, you know, primary season and then election season is coming up and they don't want Colbert probably booking guests

that will rile Donald Trump because this is about not having a critic of Donald Trump, have it free, have his free speech rights. That's what I've interpreted it all along.

Jonah, what do you think? Yeah, so this is one of these things where, you's what I've interpreted it all along. Jonah, what do you think?

Yeah, so this is one of these things where, you know, I've hated the equal time rule for a really long time and I, you know, I thought it was basically, as they say in Princess Bride, mostly dead anyway. And so the idea on the politics of this, this actually was very good for Tallarico, right? There's this thing that people call the Streisand effect, where you protest a little bit about something, and the protesting of it actually amplifies the message

more than if you just ignored it. The interview got far more views on social media and on YouTube than it would have if it just aired as just a normal appearance on the show. And so in some ways, this was a gift for Tolerico. And it was also a gift for Colbert,

who was looking for opportunities to stick his thumb in the eye at CBS and of Trump. And this whole thing, I mean, I'm not saying that they don't deserve to have the thumbs in their eyes, but the whole thing was sort of set up as a perfect storm where everybody kind of comes out a winner in this bill

Do you think that this will have a chilling effect on other shows other late-night shows and other talk shows like the view or whatever?

Well, that's the that seems to be the point Jake. There aren't that many shows here that will be infected by this because Kimmel and the view have been critical of Trump, so, and Seth Meyers, obviously. But if you go further than that, there aren't many TV shows, which, as you pointed out, makes this even more strange, because if CBS was in a different situation that they are in, and they wanted to fight this,

they could have gone to a court and said, how can you put this rule on us and not radio? They're doing the same thing, and there's thousands of stations that are conservative talk radio. There's no way that they would enforce the rule against them. So it does seem like selective regulation against them.

So I'm surprised that maybe ABC will do that if they go after Kimmel again. But frankly, I just think that it's embarrassing. It really is embarrassing to me that you have Trump reacting to this small cadre of critics. Every president has been criticized by late-night TV, and only this one wants to sic his FCC on them.

Jonah, I want to play something else that Talarico said in that interview with Stephen Colbert that I saw on YouTube, not on CBS.

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 and this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture,

the kind that comes from the top. So you and I are old enough to remember Jonah that when Trump was elected in 2024 that there was a huge hue and cry from conservatives and libertarians that there would be free speech. And in fact, Trump said something about that, I think in his address to a joint session of Congress, that finally there's gonna be free speech returned.

It doesn't really seem that way. And even with this news exemption, he goes after news shows all the time.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny, you know, Marco Rubio just gave this speech in Munich at the Munich Security Conference. JD Vance gave that speech a year ago and most of that speech was dedicated to the idea that America now defends free speech

unlike the prior administration and everyone needs to follow America's example of actually extolling free speech. And here, look, I'm not a huge fan of Telerico, but his point is correct. I'm not a big fan of cancel culture. I think there's a cancel culture of the left and a cancel culture of the right.

But the argument from conservatives was always that, you know, it's the most dangerous kind is when the federal government uses the power of the state to impose its will on on free speech. to impose its will on on free speech and Like we've seen this cycle with lawfare with violations of norms one side violates the norms and the other side gets into power and violates them even more because they use that precedent we can talk about that With things like the filibuster or all sorts of things if you don't think there'll be enormous pressure on the next Democratic administration To play tit-for-tat against right-wing talk radio, I think you're

crazy. Of course they're going to try and do that. And that's why you're supposed to have neutral rules that sort of stick to the merits rather than this sort of bring one junta in, attack the other side, bring the other junta in, and get payback. And that's the cycle that attack the other side, bring the other junta in, and get payback. And that's the cycle that we're going to see here.