00:00Late show host Stephen Colbert taped an interview with Texas State Representative James Tallarico.
00:05He's a Democratic candidate in the Senate primary in Texas.
00:07But Colbert says CBS's lawyers stepped in before the interview that they pre-taped could actually air on broadcast television.
00:17We were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly,
00:22that we could not have him on the broadcast.
00:24Then, then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on,
00:31I could not mention me not having him on.
00:34And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this.
00:41Colbert says this all stems from recent threats from the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission,
00:47known as the FCC for background.
00:49There is an old regulation known as the Equal Time Provision,
00:53which would require broadcast networks to give equal airtime to all legally qualified candidates for public office,
01:00meaning if one is featured, his or her rivals have to be given the same amount of time, equal time.
01:05There are big exemptions for news coverage.
01:08And for the past two decades, that exemption has also been applied to late night and daytime talk shows.
01:15This all started in 2006 when the FCC officially gave that exemption to the interview segments of The Tonight Show
01:21with Jay Leno.
01:22That was a break from the previous 1960 ruling by the FCC about The Tonight Show with Jack Parr.
01:29Now, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued guidance last month cautioning networks that,
01:35regardless of the Leno ruling from 2006, daytime and late night TV talk shows will not be automatically considered bona
01:43fide news programs exempt from equal time rules,
01:46particularly if, in Carr's view, the program is a, quote,
01:50program that is motivated by partisan purposes, unquote,
01:53which, based on past editorial comments by Carr, seems to be a fairly expansive group of shows.
02:00So, we should note, Carr is also not applying the equal time rule to talk radio, which tends to tilt
02:07rightward.
02:08Colbert, on his show, addressed Brendan Carr directly.
02:14Well, sir, you're chairman of the FCC, so FCCU.
02:20Let's just call this what it is.
02:22Donald Trump's administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV,
02:27because all Trump does is watch TV.
02:30Now, we should note that this afternoon, CBS issued a statement saying, quote,
02:34The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting in the interview with Rep. James Tallarico.
02:40The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates,
02:46including Representative Jasmine Crockett,
02:49and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.
02:53The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast,
02:58rather than potentially providing the equal time options, unquote.
03:02CBS is referring to the equal time rule only applying to broadcast.
03:05So, Colbert's show posted the Tallarico interview on YouTube.
03:09In this interview, that never saw the light of day on broadcast television,
03:12Tallarico accused Republicans and the Trump administration of perpetuating their own version of cancel culture.
03:22They went after The View because I went on there.
03:25They went after Jimmy Kimmel for telling a joke they didn't like.
03:27They went after you for telling the truth about Paramount's bribe to Donald Trump.
03:33You'll remember last year, the previous owners of CBS, Paramount,
03:36paid $16 million to resolve an extraordinary lawsuit filed by Trump over a 60-minute news report,
03:43an interview with Kamala Harris.
03:45Some Democratic senators and critics called the payment by Paramount a bribe or a backdoor deal
03:50so Paramount could get Trump administration approval, FCC approval, for the Skydance Media merger.
03:56The president denied that the 60-minute settlement had anything to do with his administration's approval of the merger.
04:01We should note the current owners of Paramount want to buy Warner Brothers Discovery,
04:07which is our parent company here at CNN.
04:10Let's discuss with Bill Carter.
04:13And Jonah Goldberg, editor of The Dispatch.
04:16Bill, do you think the CBS lawyers were overreacting by however aggressively they gave that guidance to Stephen Colbert
04:26about giving Tallarico's opponents, or do you think their concerns are legitimate
04:29given how the FCC has been behaving since Brendan Carr took over?
04:34Well, you know, Carr didn't put this into effect.
04:37He said it could happen.
04:39And they said to, even in their statement, that this could trigger the equal time rule.
04:45So they were saying sort of in advance, this could happen.
04:49And really, if you're in Colbert's position, what do you take from that?
04:52You take from that, they're telling you what to do.
04:54They've already canceled you.
04:56They've already said what they think about your free speech rights.
04:59So I think he was obviously interpreting it that way.
05:02And it's legalese probably, but it sounds to me like there was a little intimidation involved.
05:07So were they overreacting?
05:10I mean, it's interesting because Tallarico is running in a primary against another Democrat.
05:15So it doesn't seem like, you know, triggering the rule to have Jasmine Crockett on.
05:19She's already been on Colbert.
05:20It's not like that would have been such a major event.
05:24But it just does seem like they wanted to lay down the rules now because, you know,
05:28primary season and then election season is coming up.
05:31And they don't want Colbert probably booking guests that will rile Donald Trump
05:35because this is about not having a critic of Donald Trump have his free speech rights.
05:40That's how I've interpreted it all along.
05:42Jonah, what do you think?
05:45Yeah, so this is one of these things where, you know,
05:48I've hated the equal time rule for a really long time.
05:51And I, you know, I thought it was basically, as they say in Princess Bride, mostly dead anyway.
05:57And so the idea on the politics of this, this actually was very good for Tallarico, right?
06:05There's this thing that people call the Streisand effect where you protest a little bit about something
06:09and the protesting of it actually amplifies the message more than if you just ignored it.
06:16The interview got far more views on social media and on YouTube than it would have if it just aired
06:21as just a normal appearance on the show.
06:24And so in some ways, this was a gift for Tallarico.
06:27And it was also a gift for Colbert, who was looking for opportunities to stick his thumb in the eye
06:34at CBS and of Trump.
06:35And this whole thing, I mean, I'm not saying that they don't deserve to have their thumbs and have the
06:41thumbs in their eyes.
06:42Right.
06:42But the whole thing was sort of set up as a perfect storm where everybody kind of comes out of
06:45winter in this.
06:46Bill, do you think that this will have a chilling effect on other shows, other late night shows and other
06:51talk shows like The View or whatever?
06:53Well, that's the that seems to be the point.
06:56Jake, there aren't that many shows here that will be infected by this because Kimmel and The View have been
07:01critical of Trump.
07:02So they and Seth Meyers, obviously.
07:04But if you go further than that, there aren't many TV shows, which, as you pointed out, makes this even
07:09more strange, because if CBS was in a different situation and that they are in and they wanted to fight
07:15this, they could have gone to a court and said, how can you put this rule on us and not
07:19radio?
07:20They're doing the same thing.
07:22And there's and there's thousands of stations that are conservative talk radio.
07:26And there's no way that they would enforce the rule against them.
07:29So it does seem like selective regulation against them.
07:32So I'm surprised that maybe ABC will do that if they go after Kimmel again.
07:37But frankly, I just think that it's embarrassing.
07:40It really is embarrassing to me that you have Trump reacting to this small cadre of critics.
07:45Every president has been criticized by late night TV.
07:48Only this one wants to sick his FCC on them.
07:52Jonah, I want to play something else that Tallarico said in that interview with Stephen Colbert that I saw on
07:55YouTube, not on CBS.
07:59This is the party that ran against cancel culture.
08:03And now they're trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read.
08:08And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top.
08:15So you and I are old enough to remember, Jonah, that when Trump was elected in 2024, that there was
08:22a huge hue and cry from conservatives and libertarians that there would be free speech.
08:29And, in fact, Trump said something about that, I think, in his address to a joint session of Congress that
08:34finally there's going to be free speech returned.
08:36It doesn't really seem that way.
08:37And even with this news exemption, he goes after news shows all the time.
08:43Yeah.
08:44I mean, it's funny.
08:45You know, Marco Rubio just gave this speech in Munich at the Munich Security Conference.
08:52J.D. Vance gave that speech a year ago, and most of that speech was dedicated to the idea that
08:57America now defends free speech, unlike the prior administration, and everyone needs to follow America's example of actually extolling free
09:04speech.
09:05And here, look, I'm not a huge fan of Tallarico, but his point is correct.
09:08I'm not a big fan of cancel culture.
09:09I think there's a cancel culture of the left and a cancel culture of the right.
09:13But the argument from conservatives was always that, you know, it's the most dangerous kind is when the federal government
09:18uses the power of the state to impose its will on free speech.
09:23And, like, we've seen this cycle with lawfare, with violations of norms.
09:28One side violates the norms and the other side gets into power and violates them even more because they use
09:33that precedent.
09:33We can talk about that with things like the filibuster or all sorts of things.
09:37If you don't think there'll be enormous pressure on the next Democratic administration to play tit-for-tat against right
09:43-wing talk radio, I think you're crazy.
09:46Of course they're going to try and do that.
09:47And that's why you're supposed to have neutral rules that sort of stick to the merits rather than the sort
09:53of bring one junta in, attack the other side, bring the other junta in, and get payback.
09:58And that's the cycle that we're going to see here.
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