Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.
Sometimes their efforts to silence debate can backfire, big time.
“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday dismissed CBS’s denial that it blocked his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D) from airing as “crap.”
“They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS lawyers, who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air,” Colbert said during his show Tuesday evening.
“In fact, between the monologue I did last night, and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage,” he continued. “I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers. Something that had never, ever happened before.”
Colbert told viewers on Monday that CBS, which is owned by Paramount, said he could not have Talarico on the broadcast over concerns about the Federal Communications Commission‘s (FCC) “equal time” rule.
The “equal time” rule requires broadcast stations to provide equal opportunities to opposing political candidates but has historically exempted talk shows.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr appears to be eyeing a change to those exemptions, suggesting in new guidance that programs “motivated by partisan purposes” should have to adhere to equal time protections.
“We looked, and we can’t find one example of this rule being enforced for any talk show interview, not only for my entire late-night career, but for anyone’s late-night career, going back to the 1960s,” Colbert said Tuesday.
In January, the FCC raised questions about such exemptions but has not issued a formal ruling.
Muskaan Arshad at The Daily Beast:
Carr singling out Talarico has drawn more attention to him, creating something of a Streisand Effect for the 36-year-old. The Streisand Effect was coined after legendary singer Barbra Streisand sued a photographer in 2003 for $50 million after he took an aerial photo of her Malibu mansion, causing the image to go viral.
According to Google Trends statistics, nationally in the past 24 hours, James Talarico’s name has been searched 5x more than that of Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett, his competitor for Texas Senator John Cornyn’s seat, and the attention could fundamentally shift the competitive election.
According to Texas Public Opinion Research, at the end of January, Crockett and Talarico were nearly tied among Democratic Primary Voters, with Crockett’s 38 percent to Talarico’s 37 percent.
One of the largest issues holding Talarico back in polling was his lower name recognition than Crockett’s, with pollsters identifying a serious “visibility gap” between the two candidates.
The attention surrounding James Talarico‘s Late Show with Stephen Colbert interview has been very good for the Texas Democrat’s campaign for U.S. Senate.
He raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after the segment was shifted from CBS broadcast to YouTube, his largest single fundraising period for the campaign.
On Monday, Colbert said that he was prohibited from featuring Talarico on his late-night show, as the FCC has issued new guidance about the appearance of political candidates on talk shows.
Instead, Colbert said that the interview would be posted on YouTube. There, the interview has drawn almost 5.2 million views, greatly exceeding the show’s average broadcast audience.