{"id":620533,"date":"2026-09-10T16:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620533\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T16:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:22:10","slug":"kimmel-says-interview-with-talarico-wont-air-on-tv-after-threats-from-trumps-fcc-us-midterm-elections-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/620533\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimmel says interview with Talarico won\u2019t air on TV after threats from Trump\u2019s FCC | US midterm elections 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> has said an upcoming interview with the Democratic Senate candidate from Texas James Talarico will not air on ABC, the US network that broadcasts his show, after the federal media regulator \u201cthreatened\u201d his show, ABC and its local affiliates.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow night I\u2019ll be interviewing James Talarico under unusual circumstances,\u201d Kimmel said<\/a> during his opening monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Kimmel said that since the show began over 20 years ago, he has interviewed \u201cAmericans who are running for office with no problem at all\u201d, noting that this ranged \u201cfrom Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015,\u201d Kimmel said. Trump came back for another interview, just before he became the Republican nominee in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for some reason, and I can\u2019t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed,\u201d Kimmel continued. \u201cNow that he is president, his FCC [Federal Communications Commission] has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings it would seem they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas<\/a>, who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will be posted on YouTube instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kimmel\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Talarico<\/a> is running<\/a> for US Senate in Texas against Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate and state attorney general.<\/p>\n

Kimmel\u2019s announcement on Wednesday came amid increased scrutiny of broadcast television by the FCC under the Trump administration. In January, the agency issued guidance<\/a> warning that daytime and late-night talkshows would be expected<\/a> to comply with rules requiring broadcasters to give equal airtime to candidates running for the same <\/a>office.<\/p>\n

According to the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, in general, talkshows have qualified for exemptions from those rules, ever since the FCC granted such an exemption to Jay Leno\u2019s Tonight Show in 1996.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, in February, Stephen Colbert<\/a>, said<\/a> Talarico was set to appear on an episode of The Late Show, which ran on CBS, until the network controversially canceled the series. But, Colbert said: \u201cWe were told in no uncertain terms by our network\u2019s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

That interview also ran<\/a> on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Last year, following unusual pressure from the FCC, ABC temporarily suspended <\/a>Kimmel\u2019s late-night show for nearly a week over a monologue he delivered about the fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

Last month, ABC and its parent company, Disney, sued the FCC<\/a>, accusing the agency of violating the first amendment in ordering an unusual early review<\/a> of the network\u2019s local station broadcast licenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,\u201d the complaint<\/a> alleges.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times<\/a> in August, the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, called the lawsuit \u201cmeritless\u201d and denied that the agency was violating free speech rights. \u201cHolding a broadcaster accountable to their public interest obligations and statutory obligations is not a violation of their first amendment rights,\u201d he said, \u201cand that is what the FCC is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, the FCC asked the court<\/a> to dismiss the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel has said an upcoming interview with the Democratic Senate candidate from Texas James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-620533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}