Alex Christy played into Stephen Colbert’s hands in a Feb. 17 post:
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert angrily denounced FCC chairman Brendan Carr after CBS told him that he could not interview Texas State Rep. and Senate candidate James Talarico for his Monday show. Colbert accused Carr and President Trump of trying to silence him but ultimately ended up interviewing Talarico anyway and put the video up on YouTube. Beyond the FCC, the main purpose of the Talarico interview was to denounce conservatives as being bad Christians.
Colbert began by lamenting, “You know who is not one of my guests tonight? 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. 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 does not want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”
After explaining the equal time rule, Colbert continued, “There’s long been an exemption for this rule, an exception for news interviews and talk show interviews with politicians…On January 21st, a letter was released by FCC Chairman and smug bowling pin, Brendan Carr. In this letter, Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were ‘motivated by partisan purposes.’ Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you.”
Colbert also huffed, “I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself. Sir, ya smelt it ’cause ya dealt it. You are Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves. 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. Okay? He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diaper.”
Ironically, the election in this controversy is the Democratic primary, so the person who benefits most from this is not Donald Trump, incumbent John Cornyn, or his challenger, state AG Ken Paxton, but the left’s favorite congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett.
As for the YouTube interview, it was as partisan as any other Colbert interview.
Of course Christy would push that idea — it’s what he gets paid to do as the MRC’s comedy cop.
Later that day, Craig Bannister put out a propaganda piece that conveniently supported the right-wing narrative:
“THE LATE SHOW was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” CBS said in a statement Tuesday after the show’s host, Stephen Colbert, claimed he was “told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers” that he could not air his interview with the Democrat candidate.
Instead, CBS said, the lawyers merely provided Colbert’s show with “guidance,” warning of potential FCC consequences of having one candidate on, but not offering equal time to Talarico’s fellow Democrats contesting in a primary to be the party’s Texas Senate candidate.
Rest assured that Bannister would not have written this piece if CBS released a different statement.
The next day, Christy put out Colbert’s side of the story — something Bannister couldn’t be bothered to do — while still being pro-CBS:
On Monday, CBS’s Stephen Colbert alleged that the network forbade him from airing an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico over concerns about a potential FCC equal time rule violation. On Tuesday, CBS denied the allegation and said The Late Show was not prohibited from airing the interview but gave Colbert advice on how equal time could be fulfilled, but The Late Show balked at the suggestions and opted to put the interview on YouTube instead. Later on Tuesday, Colbert declared that CBS’s lawyers know “damn well” that they approved every word he said.
Colbert claimed, “We obeyed our network and put the interview on YouTube, where it’s gotten millions of views. And I can see why. Talarico is an interesting guy. I don’t know if he should be the senator, but it was a good discussion. I wish we should have put it on the show where no one would’ve watched it.”
Of course Colbert thought it was a good discussion. The whole point was to smear conservatives as bad Christians. Regardless, Colbert also huffed, “But here’s where I do want to tell the lawyers how to do their jobs. They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS’s lawyers, who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air, whether it’s about equal time or this image of frogs having sex.”
Christy didn’t really respond to Colbert beyond his whining that conservatives were portrayed as bad Christians, something he didn’t actually disprove.
Christy used another Feb. 18 post to lash out at another TV host for supporting Colbert:
MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell spent the early part of Tuesday’s edition of The Last Word demanding that President Trump be impeached for allegedly receiving bribes from ABC and CBS because, according to him, CBS’s decision to not allow Stephen Colbert to interview Texas Senate candidate James Talarico follows the same pattern as the decision to pay Trump $16 million as part of a 60 Minutes-related settlement.
O’Donnell urged viewers to “remember this about the CBS lawyers: they are the weakest, most cowardly corporate lawyers in America. They are actually in a tie with ABC’s lawyers, who we will get to in a moment. The CBS lawyers who are now trying to tell Stephen Colbert, who can be a guest on his show, work for a parent company that agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit by Donald Trump against 60 Minutes, which Donald Trump had no chance of winning. Absolutely zero chance of winning.”
It is worth noting that O’Donnell is assuming Colbert’s version of events is the truth, but CBSinsists that it did not force Colbert to relegate the interview to YouTube but instead simply offered suggestions on how to fulfill any equal time obligations.
Christy offered no reason CBS should be trusted over Colbert. Instead, he whined:
The actual reason why CBS finds itself in this equal time predicament is because 214 out of Stephen Colbert’s 215 political guests from September 2022 to December 2025 have been liberals or Democrats. The one exception, Liz Cheney, was only barely an exception. With percentages over 99 percent, someone was eventually going to dust off the equal time rules.
Christy did not explain why Colbert must be subject to equal time rules, given that talk shows have traditionally been exempted from them.
Having realized the MRC bought into Colbert’s plan whether it wanted to or not, Bannister quic kly cranked out a Feb. 18 propaganda piece about it:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr said at a press event Wednesday that he got a big laugh when he looked back at the way CBS “Late Show” Host Stephen Colbert used a hoax to manipulate the media this week.
Rebuking the legacy media’s blind regurgitation of Colbert’s claim that CBS prohibited him from airing an interview with Democrat Texas Senate primary candidate James Talarico because the FCC banned the interview, Chairman Carr pointed out that even CBS says that neither the network nor the FCC prevented Colbert from airing the interview.
Instead, the media-savvy Rep. Talarico (D-Texas) and Colbert played a hilarious hoax on the all-too-predictable media, Carr explained.
[…]“Yesterday was a perfect encapsulation of why the American people have more trust in gas station sushi than they do in the national news media,” Carr said, mocking the way media were duped into doing the bidding of Colbert and Talarico:
Yet the MRC, it can be argued, was also “duped” into Colbert’s narrative. Unsurprisingly, Bannister refused to note this fact, let alone any viewpoint alternative to Carr.