Breaking — Trump's FCC Censors Colbert. His Reply: "FCC You"

CBS lawyers killed a Democratic candidate's interview while he sat in the studio. Colbert was told not to mention it. He spent six minutes blasting the FCC instead.

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They told him he couldn’t air the interview. Then they told him he couldn’t mention the interview. Then Stephen Colbert took the national stage and did both.

On Monday night’s Late Show, Colbert revealed that CBS lawyers called his team directly and told them “in no uncertain terms” that a planned interview with Texas State Representative James Talarico—a Democrat running for U.S. Senate—would not air on the broadcast.¹ Talarico was already in the studio. The interview was already taped. CBS killed it anyway, preemptively bowing to new FCC guidance from Chairman Brendan Carr that revoked a 20-year precedent protecting political interviews on talk shows.¹

Then came the second order: don’t talk about it. CBS lawyers told Colbert he could not mention the fact that the interview had been pulled.² That’s not editorial judgment. That’s a gag order. And Colbert broke it wide open.

“Because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this,” Colbert said.¹ Then he spent six minutes dismantling Carr, the FCC, and the administration’s assault on broadcast media—calling Carr a “smug bowling pin” who is “Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves” and delivering the line of the night: “Sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you.”²

The Weapon

Here’s how the censorship machine works. In January, Carr issued a letter revoking the longstanding “bona fide news” exemption that had protected political interviews on late-night and daytime talk shows for decades—a precedent the FCC itself established in 2006 when it ruled that interviews on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno qualified as bona fide news.¹ Carr’s justification? That some shows were “motivated by purely partisan political purposes.”¹ Translation: they criticize Trump.

The rule only applies to broadcast television—not cable, not streaming.² Fox News is exempt. Newsmax is exempt. The censorship is surgical, targeting the networks that reach the broadest audiences and happen to host voices critical of the president. Colbert named the game plainly: “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”¹

And this isn’t the first strike. Last year, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its airwaves for nearly a week after Carr suggested the administration could punish the network for remarks Kimmel made in a monologue.¹ Earlier this month, the FCC opened a formal probe into ABC’s The View over an interview with the same James Talarico—the same candidate, targeted across multiple shows.³ Carr had signaled the attack months in advance, telling conservative commentator Scott Jennings’s podcast last September that it would be “worthwhile” to investigate The View.³

This isn’t regulation. It’s a hit list.

Corporate Surrender

CBS didn’t wait for an FCC complaint. They self-censored. That’s the chilling effect working exactly as designed—and the financial leverage makes it obvious why. CBS paid Trump a $16 million defamation settlement last July.⁴ The network is now controlled by David Ellison, a Trump ally whose actions have raised questions about CBS’s editorial independence.⁴ And CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is competing with Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery—a deal that requires federal government approval.¹

That’s not a news organization making editorial decisions. That’s a corporation protecting its merger by silencing a comedian. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez—the commission’s lone Democrat—called it “another troubling example of corporate capitulation in the face of this administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech.”¹

Talarico put it best in the interview CBS didn’t want you to see: “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. Corporate media executives are selling out the first amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians.”⁴

The Streisand Effect did the rest. The censored interview, posted to Colbert’s YouTube page, hit 2.1 million views—dwarfing the 93,000 views of the Jennifer Garner segment CBS aired instead.¹ You can watch the full interview Colbert was told to bury below, before the sources section at the end of this article.

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The Call

This isn’t an isolated incident. We track stories like this using the fascism syndrome—ten indicators that a democracy is sliding into fascism—so you don’t lose the thread in the daily chaos:

• Capture of the state: An “independent” agency doing the president’s bidding. Twenty years of precedent trashed by one loyalist’s letter.

• War on reality: They’re only censoring Democrats. They call it “equal time.”

• Consolidation of economic power: CBS needs federal approval for a merger. So CBS does what it’s told.

• Aggression as virtue: Kimmel pulled. The View probed. Colbert censored. Criticize the president and your network pays.

Silence critics. Punish networks. Weaponize regulators. That’s not protecting the public interest. That’s fascism.

But we didn’t build this publication to watch the collapse. We built it to fight back.

We built this publication to equip you with the tools to fight back—the frameworks, the messaging, the strategies that actually work. See the links below. But we can only keep doing this with your help. If this matters to you, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You keep the fight alive.

• Fighting Fascism: How We Push Back and Win — The strategic playbook for reclaiming power

• The Trump Regime Messaging Guide — How to talk to people who’ve been captured by the machine

• The Freedom Illusion — How we got here, and the counter-ideology that gets us out

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The Censored Interview

CBS didn’t want you to see this. 2.1 million people watched it anyway.

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Article Sources:

1. John Koblin, “Colbert Slams Trump Administration After CBS Pulls Senate Candidate Interview“, The New York Times, February 17, 2026.

The lead news report on CBS pulling Colbert’s interview with Talarico, documenting that CBS lawyers told Colbert “in no uncertain terms” the interview would not air even though the lawmaker was already in the studio. Reports this as the first time a late-night show changed programming under the new FCC guidance, details the 2006 Jay Leno precedent that Carr reversed, notes FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez called it “corporate capitulation,” and reveals the YouTube interview hit 1.7 million views compared to 93,000 for the Garner segment. Also reports that CBS’s parent company Paramount is competing to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, requiring federal government approval—establishing the financial leverage behind the self-censorship.

2. Trish Bendix, “Colbert Doesn’t Give an FCC About Calling Out CBS“, The New York Times, February 17, 2026.

The Late Night Roundup capturing Colbert’s extended monologue verbatim, including the double gag order—CBS told him he couldn’t air the interview and couldn’t mention not airing it. Contains Colbert’s full explanation of the equal time rule, his identification that it applies only to broadcast (not cable or streaming), the “smug bowling pin” description of Carr, the “FCC you” line, and the “Dutch-ovening America’s airwaves” remark. Provides the critical detail that Carr’s January 21 letter was the specific trigger for the new guidance.

3. Tara Suter, “FCC opens probe into ABC’s ‘The View’ after James Talarico interview: Reports“, The Hill, February 8, 2026.

Reports the FCC launching a formal probe into The View over a Talarico interview on February 2, establishing the pattern of targeting the same Democratic candidate across multiple shows. Documents Carr’s September 2025 statement on Scott Jennings’s podcast that it would be “worthwhile” to investigate The View—signaling the attacks months before the January rule change. Includes the FCC’s public notice claiming no evidence that “any late night or daytime television talk show program on air presently” qualifies for the bona fide news exemption.

4. Richard Luscombe, “Colbert accuses Trump administration of censorship after CBS pulls interview“, The Guardian, February 17, 2026.

Places the Colbert censorship within the broader crackdown on press freedom, including the FBI raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home and the arrest of Don Lemon covering a Minnesota protest. Reports that CBS paid Trump a $16 million defamation settlement in July 2025 and that the network is now under the control of David Ellison, a Trump ally. Contains Talarico’s quote about the party that “ran against cancel culture” now controlling what Americans watch, say, and read, and his accusation that “corporate media executives are selling out the first amendment.”