Jimmy Kimmel announced that his interview with Democrat James Talarico would be released on the Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube channel instead of being broadcast on television. Talarico, a Texas state representative, is running for a U.S. Senate seat against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Kimmel said that over the more than 20-year history of his show, he had interviewed numerous political candidates, including Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, but that “something had changed.” He said the decision to conduct the interview was made to protect local stations with FCC licenses from new threats.
During the Trump administration, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr had threatened to revoke the licenses of ABC stations on the grounds of “news distortion” if they continued broadcasting Kimmel’s show. Disney briefly took Kimmel off the air last year. In April, Carr’s FCC placed the licenses of eight television stations owned by ABC under early review. The FCC cited allegations that ABC’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices violated anti-discrimination rules as the reason. The decision came one day after Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, asked ABC to fire the host over a joke they did not like.
FCC also began investigating The View over its interview with Talarico and, in May 2026, initiated proceedings to examine whether the program should be exempt from the equal-time rule as a “bona fide news interview program.” The program has not aired interviews with political candidates since the proceedings began. Until the Carr era, talk shows featuring interviews were generally exempt from the equal-time rule, which requires similar airtime and broadcast placement to be provided to an opposing candidate if the rival candidate requests it. In January, the FCC required late-night and daytime talk shows that it said were produced for partisan purposes to comply with the rule, but did not impose similar treatment on predominantly conservative talk radio programs.
Anna Gomez, the FCC’s sole Democratic member, described the Kimmel decision as a development illustrating the extent of the censorship and control campaign. She said the FCC had no authority to threaten broadcast licenses over guest selection or editorial decisions.
In February, Stephen Colbert also said that CBS had not allowed the network to air the Talarico interview and posted the interview on YouTube. CBS, meanwhile, said it had provided Colbert with legal guidance that the interview could trigger the equal-time rule. In August, Disney sued the FCC, arguing that its First Amendment rights had been violated. While the lawsuit was pending, the FCC asked the court to dismiss the case and allow the proceedings to continue, potentially leading to the non-renewal of the ABC stations’ licenses. Watchdog groups said they were concerned that a potential settlement could restrict the content of ABC stations.
Why it matters
The decision shows that television interviews with political candidates can be shaped not only by editorial choices, but also by broadcasting license and equal-time rules. This concerns both program producers and candidates seeking to reach wider audiences with their campaigns, particularly because it remains unclear whether similar airtime will be provided to different candidates. The move to YouTube brings to the fore the question of how television networks will make content decisions in the face of regulatory pressure, while also raising the question of to what extent online platforms can fill this gap. The lawsuit filed by Disney and the proceedings concerning the licenses of the ABC stations leave a legal area concerning the limits of the FCC’s authority over editorial decisions unresolved.
Background
Trump is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 14 news stories mentioning the name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated September 12, 2026.