MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday torched CBS for pulling an interview from “The Late Show” after “the weakest, most cowardly corporate lawyers in America” caved to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission under President Donald Trump.
“In 2006, Stephen Colbert started using the phrase ‘the Colbert bump’ to describe the surge in popularity that could happen for someone just by being on TV with Stephen,” said O’Donnell. “A surge in book sales or, in the case of politicians, a bump up in the polls.”
The MS NOW host continued, “And now the Colbert bump has taken on new meaning and we here at ‘The Last Word’ stand ready to accept any guest on this program after that guest is bumped out of Stephen Colbert’s show by cowardly corporate lawyers.”
O’Donnell went on to play a clip of Colbert revealing Monday that his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) had been spiked over fears related to the FCC’s equal-time rule, which O’Donnell tore apart — before interviewing Talarico himself.
“The CBS lawyers are factually and legally wrong, as anyone who knows the law should know,” O’Donnell said Tuesday. “It would be impossible for James Talarico’s appearance or any politician’s appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show to trigger the FCC equal-time rule.”
O’Donnell noted that this rule about allowing opposing candidates airtime doesn’t even apply to entertainment programs and then read a statement released Tuesday from FCC Commissioner Ana Gomez — who wrote that this makes CBS’s decision “to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing.”
“The FCC is powerless to impose restrictions on protected speech, and any attempt to intimidate broadcasters into self-censorship undermines both press freedom and public trust,” Gomez continued in the statement, which O’Donnell read for his audience.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has threatened to enforce the equal-time rule for TV talk shows, but hasn’t actually done so yet. Colbert joked Tuesday that “CBS generously did it for him” by spiking the interview, which led him to tear into the network on his show the prior night.
“Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert said Monday. “He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers.”
O’Donnell explained that CBS has since released the “Late Show” interview with Talarico on YouTube, but also noted that its parent company, Paramount Global, paid Trump $16 million last year — before the FCC approved its $8 billion merger with Skydance.
O’Donnell didn’t hold back in his disdain Tuesday and urged his viewers, “Remember this about the CBS lawyers: They are the weakest, most cowardly corporate lawyers in America.” He then welcomed Talarico onto the program for an interview of his own.
The conversation resulted in some rather candid remarks from the U.S. Senate candidate.
“I think the reason the Trump administration and their billionaire friends are trying to silence me and this movement is because they’re worried that we are going to flip Texas in November,” Talarico said about mounting backlash to the ”corruption in our government.”
He added, “We’re going to have to do a lot of work to overcome this kind of censorship. We’ve got to get our message out to the voters across this state. And so if your viewers want to help us, they can go to JamesTalarico.com.”
Watch the full monologue and interview with Talarico on MS NOW’s YouTube account.
