Jimmy Kimmel Moves Talarico Interview to YouTube After FCC Threats
Jimmy Kimmel announced on September 10, 2026, that his late-night show would not air an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico on ABC, citing threats from the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission. The interview appeared instead on YouTube, where it reached audiences outside the reach of broadcast regulation and where neither the FCC nor ABC’s affiliates could object.
What Kimmel Said
Kimmel addressed the decision in his monologue, naming the pressure directly. “Trump’s FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple traditional editorial decisions,” he told his studio audience. He said that something had “changed now that he is president,” drawing a contrast with his ability to interview Trump himself during the 2015 and 2016 campaign cycle without any regulatory consequence.
The FCC’s concern centers on the federal equal time rule, which requires broadcast licensees to give opposing candidates equivalent airtime when one candidate appears on air. The commission had already opened an investigation into ABC’s “The View” after the program hosted Talarico earlier this year. Following that inquiry, Texas-based ABC affiliates filed equal time notices with the FCC. Rather than expose the network and its local stations to further regulatory risk, ABC declined to air the Kimmel interview on broadcast television.
Who Is James Talarico
Talarico is a Texas state representative mounting a Democratic challenge for a U.S. Senate seat that Republicans have held for more than three decades. He has drawn attention for a political style that pairs progressive positions on healthcare, LGBTQ+ rights, and economic policy with openly religious language. He sees the FCC’s involvement as politically motivated. “This is the party that ran against cancel culture,” Talarico said. “Now they’re trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read.” He has also attributed the scrutiny to a more specific calculation: “I think that Donald Trump is worried that we’re about to flip Texas.”
A Pattern of Pressure on Broadcasters
Kimmel is not the first late-night host to face this situation over a Talarico interview. Stephen Colbert encountered the same problem earlier this year, when CBS lawyers blocked his Talarico interview from airing on broadcast television. Colbert posted the conversation to YouTube and used his monologue to describe what network lawyers had told him he could not say or even acknowledge. That pressure eventually formed part of the backdrop to CBS canceling Colbert’s show entirely.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has been at the center of this enforcement pattern. Notably, even Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who has aligned closely with Trump on most issues, criticized Carr’s approach to the Kimmel situation, comparing it to a scene “right out of Goodfellas.” The enforcement has also been uneven: critics have noted that Fox News programming has faced no equivalent equal time scrutiny during the same period, despite featuring Republican candidates in similar contexts. FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez described the selective enforcement as “corporate capitulation” and “censorship.”
What It Means for the Midterms
The standoff arrives as the country heads into a competitive midterm cycle. With House Republicans already facing internal tensions ahead of November, the FCC’s enforcement raises a pointed question about which candidates can reach broadcast audiences in competitive races and which cannot. The White House has been aggressive in using regulatory leverage against networks seen as unfavorable, and the Kimmel situation is among the clearest examples of what that pressure produces. A major-party Senate candidate in a state his party hopes to flip finds himself locked out of broadcast television, while his opponent faces no equivalent restriction.
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