CBS banned Stephen Colbert from interviewing a Democratic Senate candidate and then told him he couldn't even mention the ban. The Colbert, he used what I think a lot of people have misplaced these days, his backbone, and he mentioned it anyway. And now, that interview, which was really supposed to air to maybe a few hundred thousand people, has been seen by millions and millions of people because the FCC and CBS just stricent affected themselves. When we first learned about this because Colbert opened his show last night saying,

You know who is not one of my guests tonight?

That's Texas State Representative James Tala Rico.

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.

Then,

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. And we've been talking about Colbert's network a lot lately. It's CBS. And over the last year, CBS and its parent company Paramount Skydance, they've been bending over backwards to appease Trump ever since David Ellison took ownership. Among other things, CBS News has been accused of morphing into Fox News light, its chief pulled a 60-minute story critical of an immigration detention center used under the Trump administration. And last year, they announced that they were pulling the plug on Colbert's show. And that was a move that many viewed as currying favor with Donald Trump. And CBS's rightward shift, it's been really well documented. And all of that brings us to the Democrat running to unseat Republican John Cornyn in a major Senate race, James Tilarico. Right in Texas, you have Cornyn facing a primary challenge from AG, Ken Paxton, and Tallarico is facing off against Jasmine Crockett and the Democratic primary. And while Democrats in Texas have not won a statewide election in Texas for decades, this race has become very chaotic and Democrats are hoping that they can actually pave a path forward. And as far as this ban, as far as this controversy, So you had Colbert explaining that it deals with the FCC's equal time rule, which says that if a broadcast network gives airtime to one candidate, then their opponent is entitled to equal airtime. And while news and talk show interviews have long been considered exceptions to the rule, earlier this year, you had Trump's FCC chairman Brendan Carr releasing a letter suggesting that talk show interview should maybe not be exempt from the equal time rule, especially if they're quote, motivated bipartisan purposes. And for those unfamiliar with Brendan Carr, maybe you haven't seen us talk about him in the past. One of his favorite past times is to lick the bottom of Trump's filthy boots and he hates anyone who doesn't follow suit. So he probably has no issue painting Colbert as too partisan for an exemption, though Colbert, he disagrees. Ray Colbert thinks that Carr's actually the one motivated by partisan purposes, and he argued, Donald Trump's administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV. And you also had Colbert noting that just a week ago, the FCC actually opened a probe into the view for interviewing Tilarico, and his candidacy has really been at the center of the FCC's politics lately. Now, all that said, right, to get a round equal time rule, you had Colbert still interviewing Talleyco, but instead uploading it to YouTube instead of airing it on TV. Because the rules, it only applies to radio and broadcast television, not streaming or social media. And what we saw in this interview that was banned from TV is that even though there's political heat on him, Tala Rico wasn't afraid to call out Trump and CBS for the censorship.

I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas.

This is the party that ran against cancel culture.

And now they're trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read.

And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top. And as far as the backlash with all this, you have people comparing this to when ABC Yang Kimmel off the air last year after being threatened by Trump's FCC. You also had Senator Chris Murphy writing, this is a censorship state. Is censorship a conservative value? Is that why Republicans are silent about this?

No, of course not. They are just happy to let Trump try to rig our politics because they benefit.

You also had Representative Yassiman and sorry echoing that. Saying the right hates freedom of

speech because their policies are largely unpopular and implementing them requires shutting people

up and a lack of opposition. Meanwhile, you had others tying it to the ongoing corporate deals at CBS and Paramount. Saying the real reason CBS didn't let Colbert air his interview with James Tyler Rico is that the Ellisons are still trying to buy Warner Brothers and David Ellison runs Paramount, which owns CBS. He's using CBS to show what loyal oligarchs they are as they seek FCC approval for a WBD deal. And overall, you just have so many people giving Colbert props for calling his network out. So he was told not to say anything and did so anyways. This man is not getting enough credit for standing up for free speech. Right, and with all this, you've got people pushing back against Carr and the FCC for enforcing the equal time rule against Colbert like this, claiming that it's not how it works. With the bulwarks Tim Miller, for example, saying this would basically mean no presidential primary candidates in 2027 on network TV because none of the shows are going to talk to all the loser also rins. But also, you've got some people, and I include myself in this camp, that think, this is really one of the best things that could have happened to Tilar Rico's campaign. He's making national headlines because you essentially have the Trump administration and a big corporation trying to censor him. And while the views are still going up on YouTube and all these other platforms, we're talking seven-figure views. It is another case of the Streisand effect. In attempting to mute Colbert and Tilarico, the FCC and CBS actually ensured that even more people would be watching. And you know, well, yes, that is a win. this still is something you need to be concerned about because, you know, watching the FCC get weaponized in real time to chill political speech on broadcast TV, it's scary and it matters. Right, the equal time rule exists to prevent networks from giving unfair advantages to candidates. But talk shows have been exempt from this rule for decades because news and interview programs serve a different function than campaign advertisements.

Johnny Carson interviewed candidates, Letterman interviewed candidate, Stuart, Colbert,

Fallon, Kimmel, all of them have interviewed candidates for years without triggering equal time requirements. But then you get partisan figures like car, you get corporations, whether they are

complicit or they're scared, bending the knee. And that's a big part of this, because the interview

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