The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission remained defiant on Wednesday after the agency faced a firestorm over a Democratic candidate’s interview with Stephen Colbert.
Brendan Carr, 47, maintained that the equal time rule applies to late-night television after Colbert accused CBS of censoring his interview with James Talarico, a rising Democratic star running for Senate in Texas. The FCC rule, cited by CBS in its legal guidance to Colbert, mandates broadcasters to provide comparable time to all political candidates seeking the same office. It ultimately led to the Talarico interview being released on YouTube instead of on-air.
“Congress passed the equal time provision for a very specific reason,” Carr told reporters after an open FCC meeting on Wednesday. “They did not want the media leads in Hollywood and in New York to put their thumbs on the scale and pick their winners and losers in primaries and general elections. That’s the point.”
“What’s so ironic about it is, had they gone down the path of complying with the equal time provisions here, it would have meant more airtime for more Democrats to say whatever those Democrats would,” he added. “There was no censorship here at all.”
For decades, late-night and daytime talk shows had been spared from the equal time rule under what is known as a bona fide news exemption. But last month, Carr issued guidance indicating that such talk shows do not qualify for that exemption. The FCC reminded networks to file a petition to determine whether they qualify for the bona fide news exemption if they want to host political candidates without complying with equal time restrictions.
“For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as ‘bona fide news’ programs – even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes,” Carr wrote in an X post at the time. “Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.”
Critics warned that the move could cause a chilling effect and influence networks’ decision-making. Anna Gomez, the sole Democratic FCC commissioner, branded the “misleading announcement” as “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.”
“The First Amendment does not yield to government intimidation,” she said. “Broadcasters should not feel pressured to water down, sanitize, or avoid critical coverage out of fear of regulatory retaliation.”
Two weeks later, the FCC launched a probe into ABC’s The View over its interview with Talarico. President Donald Trump appeared to approve of the move, reposting an article about the development on his Truth Social account.
The 36-year-old Texas state representative once again found himself at odds with Carr after he claimed in an X post that Trump’s FCC “refused to air” his interview with Colbert. By the account of CBS and the late-night host, however, it was the network’s call and not the FCC’s.
“The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” CBS said in a statement. “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”
“When I step back and look at the entire arc of the news story yesterday, I was highly entertained,” Carr said on Wednesday. “Anybody that’s not suffering from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome could see right away yesterday the exact story arc and how it was gonna play out: you had a Democrat candidate who understood the way that the news media works and he took advantage of all of your sort of prior conceptions to run a hoax apparently for the purpose of raising money and getting clicks, and the news media played right into it.”
A Paramount representative for The Late Show did not immediately return a request for comment.
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