Is the FCC 'equal time' rule leading to media censorship — and self-censorship?

The NPR Politics Podcast

NPR

News, Daily News, Politics

4.4 • 25.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC over its show The View's airing of an interview with a Texas politician. Stephen Colbert moved his interview with the same candidate off broadcast, all because of the FCC’s "equal time" rule. We discuss the rule, possible changes to it, and how it could all affect the way Americans get their information.

This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, media correspondent David Folkenflik, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.

Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Ira Glass.
0:02.0	On This American Life, we look for stories that are surprising.
0:05.0	And you won't hear anywhere else.
0:06.9	Like, for example, this one astronaut who went to the moon, you know what he's not into?
0:12.2	Space.
0:13.1	Was it cool to float around weightless?
0:15.4	No, no, no.
0:18.6	This American Life, unexpected stories, wherever you get your podcast.
0:27.7	Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.
0:30.3	I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
0:32.0	And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
0:34.7	And NPR's media correspondent is here with us, David Fulkin Flick. Hi, David.
0:38.8	Hey, guys. And today on the show, we're going to talk about the FCC, Stephen Colbert, and what an
0:43.2	argument about equal time rules for candidates says about the Trump administration's pretty aggressive
0:48.7	stance towards the media. So, David, let's just start with last week. This is something that a lot of
0:53.4	listeners may have seen on their phones or on their computers.
0:56.0	But Stephen Colbert comes on his late night TV show and says this about Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talrico.
1:03.8	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
1:12.1	on the broadcast. The actual interview aired on the late show's YouTube channel. David, can you
1:18.0	explain exactly what happened? Sure, and we have some competing versions of exactly what happened,
1:23.6	but as we heard that excerpt, Colbert came out to his audience and said, we can't present to you this interview.
1:29.6	We were told by lawyers that it's not possible and that if we did, we'd have to offer his two leading competitors in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat from Texas this year, equal time on the show. And that said, CBS came out the next day and said,
	...

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