Kimmel says interview with James Talarico won’t air on TV under pressure from the FCC

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Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said the agency that regulates television “threatened” the show and that an interview with James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas, will not air on television but on YouTube — thus bypassing any control or regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.

It’s not the first time a TV show has moved an interview with Talarico to YouTube. The candidate’s appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show in February was moved online over network fears that it would violate regulatory guidance from the Federal Communications Commission on giving equal time to political candidates.

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Talarico is in a tight race against Republican, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, and has given Democrats hope of winning statewide in the otherwise GOP-dominated Lone Star State.

“For the whole 20+ years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem,” said Kimmel on his Wednesday night show, the titular “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

“Something has changed,” he continued, suggesting that Trump’s presidency was that something. “His FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates our local stations, based on simple traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings it would seem they don’t like.”

The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Anna Gomez, the Commission’s sole Democrat, said in a Thursday statement on social media that Kimmel’s decision to keep the interview off-air “shows just how far this Administration’s campaign of censorship and control has gone.”

Gomez condemned the latest “intimidation” from her agency — and added that she hopes “courts will soon make clear that the FCC has no place dictating editorial choices or what viewers are allowed to see.”

In August, in a further escalation of its battle with the Trump administration, Disney-owned ABC sued the FCC on First Amendment grounds, saying the agency’s demand for early review of its broadcast licenses — years before they were set to expire — posed an “existential threat” to the network.

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The FCC had ordered the review months earlier, citing the network’s diversity and inclusion practices as a reason, but the development came shortly after a joke by Kimmel — a long-outspoken Trump critic — had infuriated the president. In April, Trump and first lady Melania Trump called for ABC to fire Kimmel over a joke where the late-night comic described the first lady as having “the glow of an expectant widow.”

Kimmel didn’t elaborate further Wednesday on what grounds the FCC cited when the agency, as he put it, threatened the show over the Talarico interview. In the past, including with Talarico on Stephen Colbert’s show, the contention has been over a requirement that broadcast stations give equal time to political candidates when they appear on-air.

The rule traditionally hasn’t been applied to talk shows. But the Trump administration, through the FCC, announced in January that late-night and daytime hosts had to follow it.

AP business writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips in Chicago contributed to this report.