Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said it's "fake news" to suggest that the government pressured CBS to pull a Democratic lawmaker's interview from Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show" earlier this week.
Carr addressed the latest flash point moment between broadcasters and the FCC in his Wednesday remarks during the commission's February open meeting, saying there was "no censorship by the government here."
Speaking to Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Wednesday evening, Carr doubled down, describing the incident as "Democrat on Democrat violence," rather than evidence that the commission had pressured CBS not to air the interview.
Instead, Carr said, CBS's advice to "The Late Show" not to air an interview with James Talarico, a Democratic Texas state representative running for a hotly contested US Senate seat, was an appropriate response to prevent the commission from enforcing its equal time rule.
The equal time rule requires TV and radio broadcast stations to provide equivalent airtime opportunities to legally qualified political candidates, or risk fines or, potentially, the revocation of their broadcast license. The rule does not apply to bona fide newscasts, interviews, or on-the-spot news.
The rule has rarely been applied in recent decades. Broadcasters had generally understood a 2006 FCC ruling to mean that interviews on daytime and late-night talk shows were exempt from the rule. However, the FCC said in revised guidance sent to stations last month that "This is not the case."
"Perhaps Colbert and other establishment Democrats want to put the thumb on the scale in this Democrat primary for one candidate over the other," Carr told Ingraham. "I don't know, you'll have to ask them, but we're going to enforce the law and hold broadcasters accountable."
Carr told reporters during the FCC's open meeting that the commission was pursuing "enforcement actions" against the talk show "The View" over its broadcast of an interview with Talarico.
"What we're doing now is simply applying the law on the books in an even-handed manner, and for people that benefited from a two-tier system of justice during the Biden years, they may feel like that's weaponization, but that doesn't make it so," Carr told Ingraham.
Representatives for Fox News, CBS, The Late Show, and the campaigns of Talarico and primary opponent Jasmine Crockett did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. The FCC pointed to Carr's remarks during the open meeting when reached for comment.
CBS previously said in a statement that it did not specifically prohibit "The Late Show" from broadcasting the interview, but that it did provide the show with legal guidance.
Colbert, who has hosted "The Late Show" since 2015, told his viewers on Monday that CBS lawyers said "in no uncertain terms" that his late-night talk show could not air the interview with Talarico. He also said he was told not to acknowledge the decision on air, which prompted his decision to post the interview on YouTube.
By the time of Carr's appearance on The Ingraham Angle, Colbert's interview with Talarico had received more than 3.8 million views — significantly more than other recent interviews, which average between about 75,000 and 510,000 views.
Rep. Crockett, a Democrat running against Talarico, said during a Tuesday appearance on "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" likely gave her primary rival a "boost."
In a Wednesday social media post, Talarico's campaign confirmed that the fervor around the incident had a positive effect, saying it had raised $2.5 million in 24 hours after the Colbert interview was scrapped.
