On Tuesday night’s broadcast of “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert slammed his home network, CBS, for releasing a statement denying it pulled his interview with Rep. James Talarico off Monday night’s broadcast, a move he says was done without his knowledge.
“Without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release,” Colbert said, presenting the statement to the audience on a sheet of paper. “This statement, it’s a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it’s trying to cover.”
Colbert then read the statement, released Tuesday by CBS, in full: “‘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 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.”
He went on to say that the statement read like it was “written by and, I’m guessing, for lawyers.” Colbert joked that since CBS’ legal team seems “intent” on telling him how to do his job, he would return the favor.
“Fellas, I am well aware that we can book other guests,” Colbert said. “I didn’t need to be presented with that option. I’ve had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I could prove that to you, but the network won’t let me show you her picture without including her opponents. So I guess I’ll just have to show you this picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein instead.”
Colbert explained that “every word” of Sunday night’s script was approved by CBS’ lawyers before the interview with Rep. Talarico was abruptly shut down. Colbert also claimed he received even more notes from the legal team during the commercial break about how he can and can’t talk about the pulled interview, something that has “never happened before” in the 11 seasons of “The Late Show.”
“So I don’t know what this is about. For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network,” Colbert concluded. “As I said last night, in my interview with James Talarico — check it out, it’s on YouTube, it’s pretty good — I said to him I’m grateful to have worked at CBS for the last 11 years and worked with George [Cheeks] and David [Stapf] and Amy [Reisenbach] and everyone at the network, the Sheldons of every age, the Matlocks of every sex. I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.”
Colbert on Monday night revealed that lawyers for CBS called “The Late Show” staff and told them, “in no uncertain terms,” the interview with Rep. Talarico was not to be aired in compliance with the FCC’s “equal time” rule. The “equal time” rule states that broadcast networks must provide equal airtime to politicians from both sides of the aisle during election season. However, according to Colbert, there has “long been an exception to this rule” for talk shows like “The Late Show.”
Although FCC Chair Brendan Carr has yet to eliminate the exception, Colbert pointed out that CBS is “unilaterally enforcing it as if he had.” In jest of the network’s own language as to why it canceled “The Late Show,” Colbert said the decision to shoot down the interview with Rep. Talarico was “for purely financial reasons.”
Colbert went on to give his own interpretation of what happened, “Let’s just call this what it is. Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV. He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers. So it’s no surprise that two of the people most affected by this threat are me and my friend Jimmy Kimmel.”
