It seems that Trump and his group are really, really worried about losing the important Senate race in Texas, and they’re trying to stop the candidate they think can win—Rep. James Talarico.
Just after a popular appearance on The View where he showed off his smart talking and strong leadership, Talarico was ready to do The Late Show with Colbert.
But Trump’s FCC stepped in to stop it, telling the Colbert team they could only air the interview on YouTube.
Colbert explained, “You know who isn’t one of my guests tonight?
That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico. 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 couldn’t have him on the broadcast. Then, then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I couldn’t even mention that I couldn’t have him on.”
He continued, “And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.
So, you might have heard of this thing called the Equal Time Rule. It’s an old FCC rule that only applies to radio and TV, not cable or streaming. It says if a show has a candidate on during an election, they have to have all that candidate’s opponents on as well.”
“It’s the FCC’s most time-honored rule, right after no nipples at the Super Bowl.
There’s long been an exception for this rule, an exception for news interviews and talk show interviews with politicians. Now, that’s crucial.”
“How else were voters supposed to know back in 92 that Bill Clinton sucked at saxophone?
But, on January 21st of this year, a letter was released by FCC Chairman and smug bowling pin Brendan Carr. In 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’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you.”
Then Colbert really hit Trump and his authoritarian moves to control speech:
“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. Okay? He’s like a toddler with too much screen time.”
“He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers.
So, it’s no surprise, it’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel. When this letter dropped, we both talked about the letter on air, and then later, Carr defended it like this.”
“If Kimmel or Colbert want to continue to do their programming, and they don’t want to have to comply with this requirement, then they can go to a cable channel or podcast or a streaming service and that’s fine.
Great idea, man whose job is to regulate broadcast TV. Suggest everyone just leave broadcast TV.”
“I can’t interview James Talarico.
I can’t show any pictures of James Talarico. I’m not even sure I can say the words James Talarico.”
“But what I can show you is what we always show when we have to pull material at the last minute.
This tasteful nude of Brendan Carr!”
Alarm bells should be ringing in the office of every elected Democrat, television executive, civil rights activist, and concerned citizen in America.
This is a clear effort by the Trump administration to censor speech, create a government-controlled media system, and interfere in our elections by stopping Democrats from reaching people through TV.
Well, it’s not going to work.
Let’s make sure Colbert’s interview goes mega-viral, win the Texas Senate seat, and take kick every last Trumper out of office!
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