In a statement released Tuesday, CBS said it had merely provided Colbert with \u201clegal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule<\/a>,\u201d not actually forbidden him from having Talarico on the air. But Colbert, whose show was canceled last summer as the network\u2019s parent company sought the Trump administration\u2019s approval for the now-completed merger between Paramount and David Ellison\u2019s Skydance Media, is, to borrow his own pun, out of FCCs to give. On Tuesday night\u2019s broadcast, Colbert read CBS\u2019s statement<\/a>, whose existence he said he learned of when it was released to the press, out loud, debunking it one line at a time, and reminding his parent company\u2019s new owner how little reason he has to play nice with them. As he put in a mock promo for the network\u2019s Matlock, \u201cWatch it or don\u2019t watch it. I leave in May.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear that Colbert is not as indifferent as that sounds, and he took care on both nights to underline his gratitude to at least some of the people who have run CBS since he took over the Late Show in 2015. But it\u2019s also clear that he\u2019s profoundly opposed to the Trump administration\u2019s policies, and even more profoundly offended by the religious right\u2019s decision to cast its lot with MAGA. His interview with Talarico, which was conducted on the Late Show set and posted to the show\u2019s YouTube channel, wasn\u2019t a particularly explosive one; the audience clapped politely at the beginning and end, but there was no ecstatic applause, no whoops of agreement. But it was a rare instance, at least for mainstream television, of two progressive Christians sharing their understanding of Jesus\u2019 teachings, and why that understanding leads them to oppose everything that Donald Trump stands for. It\u2019s rare, in any medium, to hear a public figure say as plainly as Talarico did that \u201cChristian nationalism is the worship of power in the name of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n As I write, the video of Talarico\u2019s interview has been viewed over 6 million times\u2014more than twice the size of the Late Show\u2019s nightly broadcast audience, and four times more than watched any part of his interview last year with Taylor Swift. So if Carr\u2019s goal was to silence Talarico or chasten Colbert, it was an abject failure. According to Talarico, his campaign took in $2.5 million in contributions<\/a> in the 24 hours after his interview was posted, and Colbert\u2019s interview is still racking up viewers on his YouTube page, where criticism of the Trump administration seems to outperform other content<\/a> by a factor of 10. But it\u2019s doubtful putting the brakes on Talarico, or Colbert, or even CBS is Carr\u2019s ultimate goal. Like many of Trump\u2019s officials, Carr knows that the threat of action, legally justified or not, is often all it takes to compel submission. Back in 2024, when he was a lowly FCC commissioner, Carr led the public charge<\/a> that NBC had triggered equal-time rules by giving Kamala Harris a 90-second guest spot on Saturday Night Live. No formal actions were taken, but NBC ran a 60-second Trump ad free of charge during an NFL game and a NASCAR race, and two weeks later, Trump announced that Carr was his pick to lead the FCC.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n Sam Adams <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Netflix\u2019s New Hit Documentary Lets the Fox Guard the Henhouse <\/p>\n Stephen Colbert Just Gave Brendan Carr a Free Lesson in the Streisand Effect![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771473370_870_c6d8f378-624e-4675-b66e-765957861f97.jpeg\")
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