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“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert criticized CBS again on Tuesday night after the network issued a statement about his interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico that didn’t air on broadcast television the night before.
“For the lawyers to release this without even talking to me is really surprising. I don’t even know what to do with this crap,” Colbert said about the statement, which he crumpled up in a dog poop bag and discarded.
But Colbert added he is “not even mad.”
“I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one,” he said.
CBS News has reached out to CBS and its parent company Paramount, which is also the parent company of CBS News, for its response to Colbert’s latest comments.
Colbert first criticized CBS on Monday night, saying the network blocked his interview with U.S. Senate hopeful Talarico from airing on TV over recent FCC guidance about daytime talk shows and late-night TV programs providing equal time to candidates running for the same political office. The interview was posted on a platform where FCC rules don’t apply – YouTube.
CBS later said in a statement it did not prohibit “The Late Show” from broadcasting the Talarico interview on television.
“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,” the CBS statement said. “THE LATE SHOW decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”
Colbert took a dig at the statement Tuesday night, saying, “Now clearly, this statement was written by – and I’m guessing for – lawyers.”
He said “they know damn well that every word” of his Monday night script “was approved by CBS’ lawyers who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air.”
Between his Monday night monologue and his on-air discussion about the issue, he said he “got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before, and they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal-time exception, and I used that language.”
The equal-time rule was spotlighted last month when the FCC issued a notice about a decades-old law requiring any FCC-licensed broadcaster that lets a political candidate appear on its airwaves to offer “equal opportunities” to all other candidates running for the same office. The law exempts “bona fide newscasts” and news interviews from the equal-time rule.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who was appointed by President Trump and is an ally of the president, said on X at the time that legacy TV networks have, for years, “assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as ‘bona fide news’ programs – even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes. Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.”
Colbert accused Carr of being “motivated by partisan purposes” himself and said the Trump administration “wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV, OK?”
Colbert said on Tuesday he is “just so surprised that this giant, global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.”
“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.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said Tuesday, before Colbert’s latest comments, that CBS is protected under the First Amendment “to determine what interviews it airs.”
“That makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing,” Gomez wrote on social media. “Corporate interests cannot justify retreating from airing newsworthy content.”
CBS News reached out to the FCC and the White House for comment.
The Talarico campaign announced it raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after “The Late Show” controversy began, which the campaign said is the largest amount it has raised in a single day.
