CBS lawyers ordered Stephen Colbert to cancel a live interview with Texas State House member and Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico, citing pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and a newly threatened expansion of the equal time rule to late night entertainment programming. Colbert filmed the interview anyway in front of his live studio audience, then was told he could not air it, could not mention it, and could not even show a photo of James Tallarico during the broadcast. He did all three.

The decision is widely seen as CBS pre-emptively complying with the Trump administration to protect the pending merger between Paramount and David Ellison's Skydance Media. Sherry Redstone already declined to renew Colbert's contract, with the show ending in May, a move many view as direct appeasement of Donald Trump. This follows ABC and Disney paying Trump $16 million to settle a defamation suit involving George Stephanopoulos, and previously pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air under the same FCC pressure from Brendan Carr.

Tallarico posted the banned interview himself, framing it as the interview Trump didn't want you to see. Polling shows both Tallarico and Jasmine Crockett performing strongly against John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, and Anderson Cooper simultaneously announced he is leaving 60 Minutes after nearly 20 years over editorial interference tied to the Trump-aligned direction of CBS under its new Ellison ownership.

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