FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Accuses James Talarico Of Running A “Hoax” With Jimmy Kimmel Sit Down; YouTube Interview Nears 7 Million Views

Full account

The chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, has accused James Talarico, the Texas Democrat seeking a US Senate seat, of stage-managing a "hoax" to boost publicity and campaign donations after the candidate appeared in a Jimmy Kimmel interview that was released only on YouTube rather than broadcast on ABC. Writing on X on Saturday evening, Carr claimed Talarico was repeating a tactic he had allegedly used earlier in the year with Stephen Colbert, suggesting the candidate was relying on audiences misunderstanding broadcasting law or following partisan lines uncritically. Carr accompanied his remarks with a mocking illustration depicting Kimmel carrying Talarico before engineering his own downfall, a jab both outlets read as an attempt to portray the pairing as a self-created stunt. Talarico's campaign had not responded to requests for comment by the time of reporting.

At issue is the FCC's equal-time provision, which obliges broadcast stations to offer rival candidates matching airtime once one is given a platform, though news programmes and bona fide interview formats have traditionally been treated as exempt. That long-standing assumption was thrown into doubt in January when Carr's FCC issued guidance suggesting daytime and late-night talk shows might not automatically qualify for the exemption, a shift critics have characterised as a targeted move against hosts seen as unfriendly to the president. Carr has argued that many such programmes function as de facto partisan platforms and, because they operate on publicly licensed airwaves, ought to be bound by rules including the prohibition on distorting news coverage. Within weeks of the new guidance, the commission opened a formal inquiry into ABC's The View following an appearance by Talarico.

It was against this backdrop that Kimmel told viewers earlier in the week that his sit-down with Talarico would not air on television but would instead be uploaded to YouTube, a decision he attributed to protecting ABC's affiliate stations, particularly those in Texas, from potential regulatory fallout. Opening the segment, Kimmel complained that his programme was being singled out simply for interviewing a political candidate, noting that other office-seekers, including Donald Trump during his campaigns, had previously appeared on the show without triggering such concerns. Talarico, for his part, framed ABC's caution as tantamount to government-driven censorship, telling one interviewer that such pressure on broadcasters amounted to a particularly troubling strain of cancel culture that ought to concern people across the political spectrum.

The episode echoes a similar sequence in February, when Colbert likewise moved a Talarico interview to YouTube after saying network executives had raised concerns, with that video eventually amassing roughly 9.6 million views, far outstripping the show's typical broadcast audience. The Kimmel interview has followed a comparable trajectory online, reportedly drawing several million views within its first day and continuing to climb towards the seven-million mark over the following days, again exceeding what the programme would typically draw on air. Talarico has promoted the clip himself, casting it as material regulators would rather audiences did not see, while Carr's intervention marked his first public comment specifically addressing the Kimmel broadcast, having previously left the controversy to unfold without direct rebuttal.

• deadline.com
• variety.com