MS NOW panelists on “Deadline: White House” were shocked by CBS calling Stephen Colbert a liar amid the FCC-James Talarico dust up.
On Tuesday, “The Late Show” host revealed he wanted to have Talarico — a Texas representative — on the show until CBS’ lawyers called him and said that wasn’t happening and that he also couldn’t tell his audience why. CBS then denied the claim, saying it was just offering legal advice.
To kick off the discussion, Nicolle Wallace played a clip of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr discussing the agency’s new “equal opportunities” rule guidance, which will exclude late-night and daytime talk shows from receiving a bona fide news exemption. After the clip, she emphasized that Carr makes “no mistake that the politics is driving the policy,” particularly now that networks like CBS are starting to alter what gets broadcast based on the new standards.
Panelist Oliver Darcy was shocked by the scuffle and CBS’s callout of their late night host.
“Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed a lot of alarm about how Brennan Carr is behaving as the FCC chair,” Darcy said. “Never has an FCC chair behaved so brazenly political, really carrying out Donald Trump’s agenda. And this is what they’re attempting to do, right? They’re attempting to intimidate networks, talk shows like Stephen Colbert’s and Jimmy Kimmel’s, and eliminate, I think, critics from the airwaves.”
Darcy added: “They’re calling, arguably, their most prominent personality effectively a liar, saying he misled his viewers. Colbert said in no uncertain terms that he was told he could have Talarico on the show. They’re saying, ‘We just provided legal guidance.’ So that’s remarkable in itself.”
Colbert discussed his interview with Talarico regardless, despite his network’s wishes (the same network that cancelled his show, despite its ratings, after his critical comments of parent company Paramount for its $16 million legal settlement with President Donald Trump).
“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers who called us directly that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said Monday. “Then I was told in some uncertain terms that, not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
He continued: “So, you might have heard of this thing called the equal time rule. It’s an old FCC rule that applies only to radio and broadcast television, not cable or streaming, that says if a show has a candidate on during an election, they have to have all that candidates’ opponents on as well. It’s the FCC’s most time-honored rule right after no nipples at the Super Bowl.”
CBS refuted Colbert’s statement in one of their own Tuesday. The network explained that they were merely giving the host legal advice about the equal time rule and not attempting to censor the show.
“’The Late Show’ was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” the network said in a Tuesday statement, obtained by TheWrap. “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. ‘The Late Show’ decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”
You can watch the full “Deadline: White House” clip in the video above.
