Jimmy Kimmel doubled down on his claim that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “threatened” his show over an interview with a Democratic Senate candidate, while the White House accused the talk show host of “play-acting.”
Earlier this week, Kimmel, 58, announced that his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, scheduled for Thursday, September 10, wouldn’t air on ABC but rather on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel. He alleged that the “FCC has threatened me, 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.”
During his monologue on Thursday, Kimmel reiterated those claims, telling his audience, “This interview will not be televised because of threats from the FCC led by [chairman Brendan Carr], who says we do not have the right to interview whichever candidates we want to interview,” seemingly referring to the FCC’s equal-time rule that requires broadcasters to offer equal time to competing political candidates, with some exceptions, including news broadcasts. (Talk shows like Kimmel’s had long worked under the assumption that they were exempt under that exception until the FCC advised otherwise in January.)
“This is yet another attack on free speech, something that has become all too familiar for us at the show, for us in the country,” Kimmel said Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday, the White House responded to Kimmel’s claims that he was “threatened” by the President Donald Trump administration-led FCC. (Us reached out to the FCC for comment on Thursday.)
“Jimmy Kimmel is play-acting — as he often does — to create a false narrative about this administration’s policies,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement, per MS NOW. “Chairman Carr has not threatened him regarding interviewing James Talarico or any other candidate. Any media outlet blindly amplifying Kimmel’s egocentric delusion should insist on proof. Of which they will find none.”
On Wednesday’s program, Kimmel pointed out that “for the whole 20-plus years of our show, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like [David] Letterman did, [Jay] Leno did, Arsenio [Hall]. … I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.”
He added, “I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015 and at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the [Republican presidential] nominee in 2016. … But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed.”
As promised, Kimmel kept his 21-minute interview with Talarico off the air Thursday night, instead sharing it via YouTube.
