US late-night host Stephen Colbert accused CBS on Tuesday of refusing to broadcast his interview with a Democratic Senate candidate over fears it would violate regulatory guidance from President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump has publicly attacked talk show hosts as partisan, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued new directives last month that talk shows give equal time to rival political candidates.
CBS said last year it was scrapping Colbert’s “The Late Show”, which often features an opening monologue that takes aim at the Republican president.
The announcement came after CBS’s parent company Paramount reached a $16 million settlement with Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 election rival Kamala Harris.
Colbert said on Tuesday that CBS pulled his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico from the broadcast the night over fears of violating the equal time rule — which Colbert argued has never applied to talk shows.
He referenced guidance from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seeking to eliminate a perceived exemption to the rule for talk shows.
“He had not gotten rid of it yet, but CBS generously did it for him and told me unilaterally that I had to abide by the equal time rules, something I have never been asked to do for an interview in the 21 years of this job,” Colbert said on his show Tuesday.
“We looked, and we can’t find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview, not only for my entire late-night career, but for anyone’s late-night career, going back to the 1960s.”
– ‘Stand up to bullies’ –
CBS has disputed Colbert’s account, saying that the network only “provided legal guidance” that broadcasting the interview could violate the FCC directive.
Colbert posted the nearly 15-minute interview with Talarico to YouTube, where it had more than 4.3 million views early Wednesday.
Talarico responded to the decision not to broadcast the interview, speculating that “Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas,” which is represented by two Republican senators.
The back-and-forth came two weeks before Texas’s primary elections, in which Talarico will face off against Democratic US Representative Jasmine Crockett in the Senate contest.
Crockett has previously appeared on Colbert’s show.
CBS, which was purchased by the Trump-linked Ellison family last year, has faced accusations of political meddling, particularly after a last-minute decision in December not to air a report on the notorious Salvadoran prison where Trump has sent deported migrants.
Trump in his first year back in the White House has frequently lashed out at late-night hosts critical of his administration and has threatened to revoke network licenses — comments critics say targets free speech.
In December, he called Colbert a “pathetic trainwreck” who should be “put to sleep.”
Colbert said on Tuesday’s show he was not mad at CBS and noted he did not want “an adversarial relationship” with the network.
“I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies,” he said.
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