Jimmy Kimmel made his late-night TV return this past week following a summer break, and he’s already been making headlines once more. The longtime host drew considerable attention this past week due to his interview with U.S. senatorial candidate James Talarico. While the conversation was initially set to be aired during a broadcast, Kimmel and co. posted it online due to the FCC’s equal time rule for partisan political candidates. Now, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is weighing in on what he calls a “hoax” of an interview.
The long-held equal time rule specifies that American TV and radio broadcasts must provide the same level of access for opposing political candidates. For years, talk shows have been exempt from this regulation though, under Carr’s provision, the FCC has been holding the shows accountable as well. During his Wednesday, September 9 broadcast, Kimmel said he would still interview Talarico the following day as scheduled but that it wouldn’t air on TV. The host also alleged that his show had been “threatened” by the FCC over the interview.
Over the weekend, Brendan Carr weighed in on the matter by way of a lengthy post shared to X. Within his message, Carr argued that the “statute does not prohibit anyone from interviewing anyone on broadcast tv” and said it’s “about more speech, not less.” He also said the rule was meant to “ensure that voters would decide elections, not media gatekeepers picking winners and losers by providing preferential airtime to some candidates and not others.” As for how that pertained to Talarico’s latest interview, Carr said:
This ties back to Talarico. He’s just running the same hoax he did a few months ago on Colbert for the purpose of getting clicks and donations—he’s banking on people not understanding the statute or operating as partisan lemmings.
Carr’s message was initially in reference to ESPN’s College GameDay welcoming Senator Ted Cruz during its Saturday broadcast. Per Carr, the equal time rule “doesn’t apply” to that appearance, because the statute encompasses networks and not a cable channel like ESPN. Coincidentally, Cruz also recently appeared on The View, which has also been dealing with FCC-related pressure as it and ABC argue that it’s exempt from the rule due to being a “bonafide news interview program.”
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In terms of James Talarico – who’s a Democratic candidate from Texas – this isn’t the first time he’s been involved in a late-night TV dispute involving the FCC. Back in February, Talarico was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, though the host also didn’t broadcast that chat. Instead, Colbert and his team shared the interview on YouTube due to the equal time statute. Colbert didn’t mince words about that at the time, though CBS argued that he wasn’t forced to remove the interview and that he did not listen to suggestions on how to tailor the conversation to the equal time broadcast standards.
While his Late Show interview didn’t make it to air, Talarico still benefited from the situation, as he received about $2.5 million in donations afterwards. Talarico’s most recent talk show interview was posted to Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s YouTube account on September 10 and, as of this writing, it has amassed over 7.8 million views. As of right now, it remains to be seen if either Kimmel or Brendan Carr will seek to speak out about this matter any further.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC as part of the 2026 TV schedule.
