In his monologue yesterday, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said he will air his interview with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate and Texas wonderboy James Talarico tonight/Thu on YouTube only, not on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as planned. Threats from 34-count felon, adjudicated rapist, and Jeffrey Epstein associate Donald Trump and his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against Kimmel; his broadcaster, ABC; all ABC affiliates; and their dogs forced the frequent Trump critic to pull the spot.
Trump’s FCC has “threatened me,” Kimmel said, “threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple, traditional editorial decisions, guest bookings it would seem they don’t like.”
The only word for this is censorship.
The mainstream media, once again, sugarcoats it. The Times: “Jimmy Kimmel to Interview James Talarico ‘Under Unusual Circumstances.’ ” NBC News: “Jimmy Kimmel says show won’t air James Talarico interview on ABC, citing FCC threats.” The LAT: “Jimmy Kimmel interview with Senate candidate Talarico won’t air on ABC.” Yahoo: “Jimmy Kimmel says FCC ‘threatened our show’ over interview with Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico.”
I believe the word that our once dependable Fourth Estate is looking for is “censored.”
And it makes sense. In most polls, Talarico holds a slim lead over the Republican nominee, state attorney general Ken Paxton, whose multifarious scandals involve securities fraud, impeachment, whistleblower firings, affairs, FBI investigations, and abuse of office. There’s a billion reasons why the GOP wants Talarico off the air, and none of them have to do with equal time for candidates from both sides of the aisle. Over the years, Kimmel has interviewed candidate Trump twice along with Ted Cruz and other lizard brains. Interviewing politicians is a well-respected talk-show tradition dating back to David Letterman.
The lawlessness of the White House always dips lower than wherever we thought the bar was (near the Earth’s core at this point). At his small, low-energy gathering in Dallas last night, Trump promised $5,000 “dividend” checks to all adult Americans if the GOP retains the House and Senate after November’s midterms. This is buying votes. This is illegal. It violates 18 U.S. Code Subsection 597 — “expenditures to influence voting.” Is anyone going to hold Trump accountable for once in his life? Are the Democrats in charge going to do anything other than pen strongly worded letters this time? “No” and “hell no” are the answers.
Courtesy Twitter
And according to my records, the “president” owes us around 10-large and counting. Along with the $5K for voting Republican this November, there’s also a cool $4,000 waiting for us from DOGE and tariff rebates. Being a stickler, I’ll add that Trump was also supposed to pay Mom $9,000 to stay home with the kids while lowering grocery prices and gracing us with $2/gallon gas, a healthcare plan, and 6,000% off prescriptions. Word of advice: Don’t make any down payments on large purchases just yet, ye marks.
Like Kimmel, Stephen Colbert also dumped an interview with Talarico to YouTube. This was in February after the late-night host’s broadcaster, CBS, forced him to pull the clip over “equal time” rules. CBS, a.k.a. Fox News Lite, denies strongarming the highly rated Colbert.
Censoring a talk-show host for exercising their First Amendment rights should concern everyone, because once criticism of the state becomes punishable, it’s not long until the thought police are knocking at your door for something you posted on social media or said to a neighbor. None of this is America.
This column reflects the opinions of the editorial board and not the Fort Worth Weekly.
