Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr spoke about how Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate race in Texas, James Talarico, had “falsely” claimed that his interview with CBS late-night TV host Stephen Colbert was being censored.
Speaking during a Breitbart News policy discussion, Carr spoke about the FCC’s equal time rule and how CBS had advised Colbert that he could run the interview with Talarico, but it might “trigger an equal time obligation.” Instead of finding ways to comply with the equal time rule, Colbert and Talarico went with a “censorship hoax.”
“Congress passed a law that said, if a broadcaster is going to have a legally, qualified candidate for office on, they have to provide comparable time and placement to all other legally, qualified candidates,” Carr explained. “This has been a rule on the books for decades and decades. But, the FCC seemingly had walked away from enforcing that regulation, or broadcasters had simply misread the provision as not applying.”
Carr explained that the provision includes “an exception for things called bona fide news programs.”
Carr added that at the time, regarding bona fide news, Congress was thinking along the lines of Meet the Press or “hard-hitting journalistic programs.” Under this exception, programs that qualify as bona fide news programs “did not have to comply with equal time.”
“Over the years, people assumed that everything is bona fide news, and therefore, the equal time doesn’t apply,” Carr continued. “We put out a public notice a couple weeks ago, reminding broadcasters that no, in fact, the equal time rule still exists. There is an exception for bona fide news programming, but you have to demonstrate that you’re subject to that.”
Carr explained that CBS “provided guidance” to Colbert, telling him that he could “run” an interview with Talarico.
CBS warned that running the interview “may trigger an equal time obligation,” and gave ways to “comply with that equal time.”
“Instead of complying with the law, and providing equal opportunity to Jasmine Crockett and others running, they decided to run with this censorship hoax,” Carr added. “It was probably one of the more entertaining days I’ve had on this job.”
“I woke up, I think it was a Tuesday morning. I saw a tweet from the James Talarico account saying, ‘This is the interview that the FCC doesn’t want you to see,’” Carr explained. “This is the first time I’d even heard about this episode.”
Carr added that the story continued to unravel, as it was claimed that “it wasn’t the FCC, but it was CBS itself that prohibited it.”
CBS “came out with a statement saying it wasn’t,” Carr added.
Breitbart News’s John Nolte reported in February that Colbert informed the audience of The Late Show they “were told in no uncertain terms” by the “network’s lawyers” that they “could not have” Talarico on the broadcast.
In a statement, CBS clarified that The Late Show “was not prohibited” from broadcasting the interview with Talarico.
“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,” CBS explained.
