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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr accused Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico of banking on public confusion over the equal time statute to drive clicks and donations.
Last week, Talarico appeared on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” but the liberal late-night host insisted the interview had to air on YouTube, instead of broadcast television, because the FCC has “threatened” the network.
The White House previously said Kimmel was “play-acting,” because the FCC did not threaten him regarding interviewing Talarico, or any other candidate.
Carr responded on Saturday to an account on X that complained Talarico was relegated to YouTube, but Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was allowed to appear on ESPN’s “College Gameday.” The chairman blasted Talarico, noting that the Equal Time statute doesn’t apply to ESPN and does not prohibit anyone from interviewing anyone on broadcast TV.
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“It is about more speech, not less. Congress wanted to ensure that voters would decide elections, not media gatekeepers picking winners and losers by providing preferential airtime to some candidates and not others. Indeed, when the statute applies, it simply requires broadcast stations to offer comparable time and placement. And comparable does not necessarily mean an interview by the same person on the same program either,” Carr wrote.
“This ties back to Talarico,” Carr continued. “He’s just running the same hoax he did a few months ago on Colbert for the purpose of getting clicks and donations — he’s banking on people not understanding the statute or operating as partisan lemmings.”
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Former late-night host Stephen Colbert interviewed Talarico in February, ahead of the Texas Senate primary, in which he was competing against Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
Colbert’s show, which has since been canceled, did not air the interview with Talarico and only posted it to the show’s YouTube channel in February. Colbert announced at the time that CBS had stopped them from airing the interview.
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Crockett, who ultimately lost the Senate primary to Talarico, blamed CBS and Colbert’s show. Critics on social media noted that Talarico’s sit-down with Kimmel was similar to the Colbert edition, with both hosts setting the Senate candidate up to declare that the Trump administration must be scared of him if they’re taking equal time so seriously.
The Talarico campaign did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
In Saturday’s post, Carr also explained that “cable shows are different than broadcast programs.”
“Broadcasters are unique. The FCC gave them free licenses worth many billions of dollars to use a public resource (spectrum). They are given a government-sanctioned monopoly on their broadcast frequencies, too. If anyone else wants to use that same public resource (spectrum) for the purpose of expressing their own views, the government will not let them — it will eject anyone else that tries to use a broadcaster’s licensed spectrum,” he wrote.
“This means that Americans are subsidizing the distribution of broadcast programs over a public resource to the tune of many billions of dollars. We don’t do that with cable or anything else. In exchange for that free and exclusive right to use spectrum, broadcasters made a deal with the American people,” Carr continued. “They agreed to operate, not in their own narrow interests, but in the public interest. There are various rules and policies that they must follow. This sets them apart from newspapers and cable shows and podcasts.”
Kimmel’s interview with Talarico has piled up over 9 million views on YouTube.
Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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