Stephen Colbert only has a short time to go before The Late Show comes to an end, for good, but the host’s last few months in the job are starting to become increasingly awkward for CBS. On Tuesday’s episode of the late night show, a clearly exasperated Colbert returned to the controversy over his interview with Democratic Rep. James Talarico, and in a remarkable piece to camera, slammed CBS’ lawyers for not consulting him over a statement released in the aftermath of the interview.
It all began on Monday’s episode of the Late Show, when Colbert revealed that CBS lawyers blocked him from interviewing Talarico, citing the FCC’s new guidance for political candidates on talk shows. The Late Show team ultimately posted the interview on YouTube which isn’t subject to such rules. On Tuesday afternoon, CBS very publicly refuted Colbert’s version of events in a statement, which lead to Colbert’s rejoinder on his own show.
During his opening monologue, Colbert said, “Folks, there’s another big story today that I never got to over in the monologue, and it’s me,” he joked. “Here’s what happened, folks. Last night I talked to Texas Senate candidate James Calarico, but, it wasn’t on the show. We put the interview on our YouTube channel because of something called the equal time rule, and that rule says that if a show, on broadcast television has a qualified candidate on during an election, they have to offer equal time to all that candidate’s opponents. It’s a pretty famous rule, but here’s the thing, there has long been a very famous exception to that rule, and that exception included talk shows’ interviews with politicians.”
He continued, “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. But on January 21st, we heard from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr… he issued a letter saying he was thinking about getting rid of that talk show exception. He had not gotten rid of it yet, but CBS generously did it for him and told me unilaterally that I had to abide by the equal time rules, something I have never been asked to do for an interview in the 21 years of this job. Now that decision, I’ll be clear, is their right, just like I have the right to talk about their decision on air.”
The audience then erupted in cheers before Colbert continued. “Last night I did, and people who interview politicians for a living noticed,” he said, before showing a series of clips of himself being talked about on news programs. “Anyway, I said my piece last night, we made some jokes that they pay me for, and I was ready to let the whole thing go until a few hours ago when my group chat [blew] up because, without ever talking to me, the corporation put out this press release, this statement.”
Colbert then pulled out a piece of paper and joked, “Now this is a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it’s trying to cover.”
He then proceeded to read out the statement, barely hiding his contempt. “In [the statement] they say the Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Representative James Tallarico. The show was providing legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal time rule for two other candidates, including Representative Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. 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.”
“Now clearly this statement was written by, and I’m guessing, and for lawyers. Now I’m not a lawyer and I don’t want to tell them how to do their jobs, but since they seem intent on telling me how to do mine, here we go. I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn’t need to be presented with that option. I’ve had Jasmine Crockett on my show twice. I can prove that to you. But the network won’t let me show you her picture without including her opponents,” he joked, adding, “So I’ll have to show you this picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein instead… They made me do it! I didn’t want to!”
Returning to a serious tone, Colbert continued, “So we obeyed our network and put the interview on YouTube where it’s gotten millions of views. And I can see why. Talarico’s an interesting guy. I don’t know what if he should be the senator, but it was a good discussion. I wish we could have put it on the show where no one would have watched it… but here’s what I do want to tell the lawyers how to do their jobs. They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS’s lawyers, who for the record approve every script that goes on the air — whether it’s about equal time or this image of frogs having sex. That’s a true story.”
Colbert then revealed more of the behind the scenes drama from Monday’s episode, revealing that “between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage. I 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, so I don’t know what this is about.”
He concluded, “For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one. As I said last night in my interview with James Tallarico — check it out, it’s on YouTube, it’s pretty good — I am grateful to have worked for CBS for the last 11 years… I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies.”
A visibly hurt Colbert ended his monologue by saying, “And for the lawyers to release this [statement] without even talking to me is really surprising. I don’t even know what to do with this crap.” He then put the statement in a dog poop bag and opened his show.
