Late night talk show host Stephen Colbert said that an attorney from the CBS network said “in no uncertain terms” that his show could not broadcast his interview with pro-LGBTQ+ state Rep. James Talarico (D), who is running for U.S. Senate, after a threat from Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an ostensibly independent federal agency that President Donald Trump has used to intimidate broadcasters. But the censorship is backfiring: millions have watched the interview online, and an FCC commissioner has publicly condemned the move.

While a CBS spokesperson denied Colbert’s explanation, they told The Hill, “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.”

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“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,” Colbert said of the censorship.

At the start of his interview, Talarico said he thought that Trump was worried that he might soon flip Texas’ U.S. Senate seat from Republican to Democrat.

“[Republicans] are the party that ran against cancel culture,” Talarico told Colbert. “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.”

He then noted that Trump has used the FCC to go after the women-led daytime talk show The View, late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, and even Colbert after he criticized his parent company for “bribing” Trump.

“Corporate media executives are selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians,” Talarico told Colbert, “and a threat to any of our First Amendment rights is a threat to all of our First Amendment rights.”

In his interview, Colbert mentioned that Talarico is a Presbyterian seminarian, a student training in a theological seminary to become an ordained minister or church leader.

“For 50 years, the religious right… convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage — two issues that aren’t mentioned in the Bible, two issues that Jesus never talked about,” Talarico said.

He then mentioned that Jesus told his followers in the Bible that they would ultimately be judged or saved by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger. “It was all about how you treat other people,” Talarico said.

He then said his Baptist preacher grandfather said that God’s two commandments were “Love God” and “Love thy neighbor.”

“There was no exception to that second commandment,” Talarico said. “Love thy neighbor regardless of race, or gender, or sexual orientation, or immigration status, or religious affiliation. And it’s why I have fought so hard for the separation of church and state in the [Texas] state capitol.”

He then said he has consistently battled Christian nationalism in politics. “There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism — it is the worship of power…. and it is a betrayal of Jesus.”

Colbert also noted that Talarico vocally opposed an anti-LGBTQ+ Texas state Republican’s 2025 bill to outlaw “furries” in public schools; a completely made-up issue of students who identify as animals, which Republicans use to discredit students who identify as transgender.

Under questioning by Talarico, the bill’s lead sponsor admitted that he had zero proof of any student actually demanding to be recognized as an animal in their school.

Though the FCC tried to censor Colbert’s interview with Talarico, Colbert circumvented the censorship by publishing the interview on YouTube instead, where it has been viewed over 3 million times as of Tuesday evening.

The interview has also been viewed repeatedly on other social media platforms, and since its censorship has made national headlines, it has been viewed far more than it might have been had the FCC not tried to block it.

Members of the FCC have also blasted the commission’s censorship attempt.

“This is yet another troubling example of corporate capitulation in the face of this Administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech,” said FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, according to The Hill. “The FCC has no lawful authority to pressure broadcasters for political purposes or to create a climate that chills free expression….  CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs, which makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing.”

Vox explained that while the FCC ostensibly warned against airing the interview in service of the “equal-time rule,” which requires equal airtime for candidates contending for the same office, late-night shows had long been considered exempt from it. But last month, the Trump administration announced that it would begin enforcing the rule on talk shows.

So far, the FCC under Trump has only reportedly enforced the rule against shows that regularly criticize him. This implies that the FCC is less concerned about ensuring equal time for political candidates and more concerned with intimidating and harassing broadcast entertainers who challenge the president’s power.

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