{"id":473441,"date":"2026-02-17T07:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473441\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T07:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T07:55:08","slug":"stephen-colbert-goes-against-cbs-wishes-and-discusses-pulled-james-talarico-interview-on-air-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473441\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Goes Against CBS’ Wishes and Discusses Pulled James Talarico Interview On-Air | Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Colbert went against CBS\u2019 wishes and discussed why his interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico would not air on \u201cThe Late Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The late night host claimed that he received a call from his network\u2019s lawyers, who said he could not have Talarico on the show nor could he share why with his viewers. However, Colbert disobeyed this order and issued a candid explanation \u2014 which included a dig at FCC chair Brendan Carr \u2014 to his broadcast audience Monday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know you know who is not one of my guests tonight? That\u2019s Texas State Representative James Talarico,\u201d Colbert started off. \u201cHe was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network\u2019s 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\u2019t want us to talk about this, let\u2019s talk about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cSo, you\u2019ve you might have heard of this thing called the equal time rule. It\u2019s 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\u2019 opponents on as well. It\u2019s the FCC\u2019s most time honored rule right after no nipples at the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"James\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

As Colbert continued, he explained that there has \u201clong been an exception for this rule,\u201d especially for talk show interviews with politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on January 21st of this year, a letter was released by FCC chairman and smug bowling pin Brendan Carr,\u201d Colbert added. \u201cIn 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\u2019re 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.\u201d Watch his whole statement below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Per Colbert, President Donald Trump\u2019s administration \u201cwants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s like a toddler with too much screen time,\u201d Colbert added. \u201cHe gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers. So, it\u2019s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert then shared that he still interviewed Talarico, but noted that the discussion will live on the show\u2019s YouTube page.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe network says I can\u2019t give you URL or a QR code, but I promise you if you go to our YouTube page, you\u2019ll find it,\u201d he said. Colbert also shared that he wasn\u2019t even allowed to show any pictures of Talarico on the broadcast, quipping, \u201cThat\u2019s a stock photo we found when we Googled \u2018not James Talarico.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

You can find Colbert\u2019s interview with Talarico below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Before signing off his update, Colbert dished out some criticism for Carr, who he suggested was not coming down as hard on conservative broadcasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarr here claims he\u2019s just getting partisanship off the airwaves, but the FCC, as I said, is also in charge of regulating radio broadcasts,\u201d the comedian said. \u201cAnd what would you know? Brendan Carr says right-wing talk radio isn\u2019t a target of the FCC\u2019s equal time notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his studio audience erupted into boos, Colbert went on: \u201cNo, no, I get this part. It makes sense. You can\u2019t get rid of talk radio. What else would your angriest uncle do in traffic?\u00a0Talk to your saddest aunt?\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert further called out CBS by noting that his network was \u201cunilaterally enforcing it\u201d even though Carr simply said he was \u201cthinking\u201d about doing away with the talk show exception.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on CBS.<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Jimmy\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert went against CBS\u2019 wishes and discussed why his interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[17105,991,88,3092,10674,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-473441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-brendan-carr","9":"tag-cbs","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fcc","12":"tag-stephen-colbert","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}