‘Free TV for Me, but Not for Thee’ Trump Says Through FCC
According to the Talarico for Senate campaign, an interview with the candidate that was supposed to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live will not be shown as the Trump Administration’s FCC works to censor the airwaves from anything that could be considered competition.
“Our movement is being censored. Again.” Talarico wrote in a campaign email to supporters late Thursday morning.
“This is a repeat of what happened with my interview with Stephen Colbert. The party that ran against cancel culture is now controlling what we read, what we see, and what we watch.”
The campaign used the opportunity to make a fundraising appeal to supporters as Election Day draws near.
“We know they are worried that we are about to flip Texas.
“That’s why, out of everywhere they could have chosen, Republicans are holding a midterm convention in Texas.
“For hours on end last night, national Republicans all the way up to the president himself attacked me and rallied their supporters to bail out Ken Paxton.
“And the corporate media did not hesitate to give them unlimited, wall-to-wall coverage of their lies and smears about me.
“But when I’m supposed to do one late night interview — on the same program Donald Trump appeared on as a candidate, no less — it’s apparently a non-starter.
“Winning this race is going to require overcoming political insiders, billionaire mega-donors, and the corporations desperate to curry favor in Washington. They are targeting our movement with every dirty trick and dollar of dark money they can because they know that we have a path to victory.”
The scheduled daily broadcast and event programming for the first night of the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas lasted 6 hours, running from 3-9 p.m. with extensive coverage from:
- C-SPAN provided full, gavel-to-gavel coverage
- Fox News aired special programming including a two-hour Sean Hannity broadcast and relocated several programs to broadcast live from the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
- NewsNation aired speeches by major figures like Donald Trump and JD Vance, while Newsmax aired selective portions, estimated by the New York Times report, to be roughly 25 percent of the proceedings
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/us/politics/trump-rnc-convention-nfl-ratings.html
CNN and MSNBC stuck to their usual evening programs while pivoting to Dallas regularly, the report also stated.
In early 2026, the FCC issued “guidance” for broadcasters reminding them daytime and late-night shows may not automatically qualify for the long-standing “bona fide news” exemption if candidate interviews on those programs are “deemed to serve partisan purposes.”
According to industry analysts, that guidance led networks to advise hosts like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel that interviewing Democratic Party candidates like James Talarico could trigger equal-time obligations for opposition candidates, resulting in segments being shifted to online platforms instead of traditional broadcasts.
Talarico’s interview will likely be available on Kimmel’s YouTube page in the near future.
