Late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel will not broadcast an interview with Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate James Talarico to be taped Thursday, after the Federal Communications Commission “threatened” his show and its network, he said on his show Wednesday.
“For the whole 20-plus year[s] of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all,” including Hillary Clinton, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and President Donald Trump when he was a candidate in 2015, Kimmel said.
“But for some reason — and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is — something has changed,” he continued. “Now that he is president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network ABC, our affiliates, our local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions: guest bookings it would seem they don’t like.”
Talarico’s interview with Kimmel will be posted on YouTube, Kimmel said. Talarico was en route to Los Angeles from Dallas Thursday to tape the segment.
Talk shows have long been exempted from “equal time” rules when conducting “bona fide news interviews,” allowing them to book political candidates without bringing on their opponents. But in January, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr directed daytime and late-night TV talk show hosts to offer equal airtime to all political candidates running for a given office.
The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republicans are “in danger of losing a Senate seat in Texas of all places where James Talarico is leading a piece of human silly putty named Ken Paxton,” Kimmel said. “I’ll be interviewing Talarico tomorrow night under unusual circumstances … out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas, who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Terico will not air on television.”
Kimmel was briefly suspended by ABC after the FCC threatened the network when he made a joke on air about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Thursday marked the one year anniversary of Kirk’s killing.
Other talk shows hosting Talarico have previously faced similar alleged pressure from the federal government.
In February, just as early voting kicked off in the primary, late-night show host Stephen Colbert ripped CBS for pulling his interview with Talarico from the air over fears of running afoul of the Trump administration. CBS refuted that it had prohibited Colbert’s show from airing the interview.
The FCC also opened an investigation into ABC’s “The View” after Talarico sat for an interview earlier this year.
Talarico raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after the Colbert interview, which was posted on YouTube and garnered millions of views. He cast the FCC’s moves as part of a pattern of government overreach, and accused corporate media executives at CBS of “selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians.”
“A threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights,” Talarico said in February.
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