Jimmy Kimmel Tried Skirting the FCC Equal Time Rules to Help Talarico, Now He's Playing the Victim

Jimmy Kimmel is the late-night drama queen. He has a routine: he says something outrageous and offensive, people get rightfully upset, and Kimmel goes on-air to cry and play the victim. He did that last year after he said horrible things about Charlie Kirk and blamed MAGA for Kirk's assassination.

Now Kimmel is back, with what seems to be another carefully-crafted scheme to make him look like the victim again. See, Kimmel wanted to have James Talarico — the Texas Democrat and U.S. Senate candidate — on his program. That's fine, but under the FCC equal time rules, Kimmel would also have to have Republican AG Ken Paxton, Talarico's opponent on, too.

Kimmel doesn't want to do that, but instead of being honest, he's accusing the FCC and President Trump of "threatening" his show and ABC.

BREAKING: Jimmy Kimmel announces his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico will NOT air on ABC tomorrow, saying Trump’s FCC has threatened him, his show, ABC, its affiliates, and local stations over “simple traditional editorial decisions” and guest… pic.twitter.com/VitDtSjHet

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 10, 2026

Here's more:

Jimmy Kimmel says that his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico will not air on TV after President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened Jimmy Kimmel Live!, ABC, their affiliates, and local stations.

During his Wednesday monologue, Kimmel said that while Talarico would stop by the show for an interview on Thursday, viewers at home won’t be able to watch it on broadcast television. Instead, the interview with the Democratic nominee has been relegated to YouTube.

“Tomorrow night, I’ll be interviewing James Talarico — tomorrow night, under unusual circumstances,” Kimmel began. “You know, for a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, et cetera, et cetera. I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.”

Just amazing, isn't it? All Kimmel does is lie and blame Republicans.

NARRATOR: Actually, it's because he'd have to give equal time to Paxton and Kimmel won't do that. https://t.co/9zUQyGCXpu

— RBe (@RBPundit) September 10, 2026

Of course he wouldn't. Kimmel hates Republicans.

What exactly was the threat? Was it that ABC would be expected to provide equal time to Ken Paxton and it didn’t want to do that? That seems like a pretty important fact that should go in the headline. Otherwise you’re getting the impression that they’re just censoring the… https://t.co/cayGrBNWqP

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) September 10, 2026

Yes. Being held to rules is a "threat" according to Jimmy Kimmel.

Dear @ABC @CBS and other networks: Grow a fucking spine. Air whatever interviews with elected officials you want. You will win in court.

Bending the knee to an authoritarian Administration only makes things worse.

I assume you will now never air an interview of trump as well? https://t.co/BuPLiprMcI

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) September 10, 2026

That's not how this works, Ted. The FCC rules — which have been in place for years — apply to Kimmel and all other broadcasters. If prior administrations didn't enforce them, that's not President Trump's problem. If Democrats like Kimmel are so sure of their positions and confident that Talarico will win the election, they should have no problem letting Ken Paxton on the show. But they're not, and they aren't confident Talarico is going to win.

You know what else you can do @ABC and @CBS? Offer Ken Paxton the opportunity to come onto late night talk shows where the hosts can legitimately skewer Paxton by asking him about all his scandals.

But instead you groveled and chose the path of self censorship. Shameful. https://t.co/dYO1mcKYjx

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) September 10, 2026

They won't do that either and we all know why.

This isn't the first time a late-night host tried this. Stephen Colbert did something similar with Talarico during the Democrat primary, icing out Jasmine Crockett and putting an interview with Talarico online.

Democrats love to censor their political opponents and play by a different set of rules to influence elections. That's not right, and it's good that the Trump administration's FCC is finally holding them to a standard.

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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