Of course they are lying. Stephen Colbert and James Talarico (D-TX), snake oil preacher, are throwing tantrums about Talarico’s interview with Colbert and the FCC Equal Time Rule.

CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert rebuked his own network Monday night, claiming that lawyers for parent company Paramount Skydance prohibited him from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D), a U.S. Senate candidate, over concerns it would violate the Federal Communications Commission’s equal time rule.

“You know who is not one of my guests tonight?” Colbert asked his audience. “That’s Texas state representative James Talarico. 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.”

Talarico is running for Senate and his opponent is Jasmine Crockett. Needless to say, that race is quite something given we have one candidate who spends his time twisting the Bible for his own political ambitions, and the other’s brand is pretending she came straight from the ghetto. 

Talarico is waving the First Amendment flag on this issue. 

.@JamesTalarico: It should be troubling to all of us that the most powerful politicians and corporate executives are working together to sell out the First Amendment.

They are selling out our freedom of speech in order to protect their own power and their own wealth.

An attack… pic.twitter.com/ORb7XfNaMw

— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) February 18, 2026

No buddy, yours and Colbert’s First Amendment rights aren’t being shut down. What CBS is trying to do, especially after the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes debacle, is comply with the FCC Equal Time rule. Which was originally put in place in 1927 for RADIO and then expanded to television seven years later. 

The Communications Act of 1934, the wide-ranging legislation that for nearly a century has broadly governed use of the nation’s airwaves, includes a provision that applies specifically to coverage of political candidates. If a station gives airtime to one candidate, then the same station must offer comparable time to other candidates competing in the given contest, should they ask for it.

It also delves into campaign advertising airtime sold by stations and networks. If a station sells airtime to one candidate, then it also has to offer to sell the same amount of time to other candidates for the same office.

There are exceptions to this rule, including newscasts, “bona fide” interview programs, coverage of live events or documentaries. But if candidates host TV shows or appear in non-news, entertainment programming, that does trigger the provision.

Equal time also only applies to broadcast television and radio. So pieces on cable, streaming services or social media aren’t included.

Colbert, Talarico and others including one member of the FCC board are trying to claim the Trump Administration is behind this supposed egregious censorship. They don’t want anyone to know that it was the CBS legal team who triggered this provision. Which meant that Colbert was supposed to run interviews with Crockett and Ahmad Hassan. 

Here’s the comedic part about all this. NO ONE was censored. Talarico’s full interview with Colbert was moved to cable and streaming platforms where the FCC rule doesn’t apply. Which even Brian ‘Potato Head’ Stelter admitted. 

This just in from CBS: "THE LATE SHOW was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James 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…

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 17, 2026

There are multiple layers of comedy with this tantrum. Talarico is running against Crockett and Hassan in a PRIMARY, so the TDS about Trump weighing in is wish casting on a grand scale. And other so-called journalists who weigh in are stepping on all sorts of rakes. 

Indeed, the interview was in response to his exit as California Governor and not as a candidate. The primary elections were in mid-1976, so the interview was nearly a year and a half before his next primary election.

— Mike Englund (@MikeEnglund2) February 18, 2026

Furthermore, the interview DID air, just not on network television.

So the claims of censorship and Trump’s involvement face plant with a giant thud. 

Even better is this. CBS could’ve forced Stephen Colbert to give Jasmine Crocket and Hassan equal time. But they didn’t. 

Jasmine made some interesting statements about this on Jen Psaki’s show. 

“No. We didn’t have an issue. We’ve never run into an issue with Colbert,” Crockett said. “Supposedly, this FCC campaign complaint came about because I had more time than Mr. Talarico when I went on [The View] after I declared my candidacy.”

She added: “I will tell you, I have no love for Bari Weiss. I have no love for Brendan Carr, whatsoever. But I do think that … it’s important that we resist in this moment. So, there were a number of options that could’ve been put on the table. And, frankly, the ‘Late Show’ decided that this was the option and I think that it was a good strategy.”

She definitely straddled the fence on this politically. All while knowing this interview during an ACTIVE campaign gave Talarico a major boost in the primary voting. And moving from network broadcast to streaming certainly did put a lot of eyes on Talarico (3 million views in less than 24 hours), but will that translate to votes? We will see. 

But again, the comedic part of this is that A. It was CBS’s legal team that advised Colbert about complying with the equal time rule. B. Rather than PROVIDE equal time to Crockett, Colbert picked his favorite and stayed with Talarico. 

And, after a day to think about it, Jasmine issued a statement. 

Crockett is essentially calling Talarico and Colbert liars now.

Says the federal government had nothing to do with shutting the interview down, and that Colbert could’ve had her on to resolve the issue, but didn’t want to.

Jasmine looks like she's slowly coming to the… https://t.co/qFcWr8Wlpj pic.twitter.com/PKNLklCqJV

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 18, 2026

She mad. And probably will lose the primary. 

Rather than give Jasmine equal time on a follow-on interview, Stephen Colbert showed his favoritism and is trying to disguise the result as censorship from the Trump Administration. He’ll go to any lengths to pull his show out of the ratings gutter. 

Feature Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Creative Commons 2.0/Antonioaesparza/Wikimedia Commons.org/cropped/Creative Commons 2.0