Jimmy Kimmel won’t be airing an interview with the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, James Talarico, on live TV courtesy of Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Jimmy Kimmel Live! will instead air the interview on YouTube, Ars Technica reported, in a decision that Kimmel told his audience on Wednesday was intended to protect ABC affiliates’ broadcast licenses.
Trump’s 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,” Kimmel said. Trump appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2015 and 2016.
Last year, ABC owner Disney temporarily yanked Kimmel from the air after Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to yank ABC affiliate broadcast licenses after Kimmel criticized GOP spin doctoring around the Charlie Kirk assassination. The FCC has subsequently started license reviews and an investigation of ABC’s The View over “fake news” (seriously).
The FCC regulates radio, television, wire, satellite and cable communications throughout the country. While it mostly focuses on issues like spectrum allocation, competition, and scam calls/texts, it can fine radio and TV broadcasters for “obscene” content. The FCC is responsible for enforcing the equal-time rule, which requires broadcasters to give equivalent access to political candidates. It also has little-known and self-admittedly “narrow” authority to regulate broadcast “news distortion”. It’s in these powers that Carr found nifty little (supposed) loopholes through the First Amendment.
The equal-time rule contains an exemption for “bona fide” news programs—a term the FCC has interpreted broadly, applying to adjacent content like talk shows, since around 1959. That’s because the news industry threw a fit, pointing out that it’s basically impossible to provide comparable time for every candidate. The equal-time rule still applies to non-news programs like Saturday Night Live, as well as commercials.
The solution? Simple. Just make the arbitrary determination that Kimmel and other talk shows aren’t “bona fide” news. Under that logic, every time a talk show features an interview with a Democratic candidate, their Republican opponent can request equal time. In this case, that’s scandal-ridden Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. If the network refuses, they face government retaliation.
This obviously doesn’t apply to the other way around, as the FCC is just another lever a desperate Trump is yanking to throw the upcoming November elections in his favor. While Carr sent broadcast TV stations notices warning the equal-time rule applies to talk shows with “partisan purposes” in January, Ars Technica reported, Carr has shown no interest in applying the equal time rule equally and has issued no such directives to predominantly right-wing radio stations.
Disney is currently suing the FCC over censorship, saying it “must now evaluate any invitation to a political candidate for its potential consequences.” Ars Technica noted, the FCC is currently trying to have the case thrown out.
