How Stephen Colbert twisted a Dem-on-Dem issue to fit his own victimhood and anti-Trump narrative

Host Stephen Colbert has manufactured another tale about the “authoritarian” President Trump trying to use the levers of government to stomp on his free speech.

On Monday, “The Late Show” spiked an interview with Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico, who is facing off against Rep. (D-Texas) Jasmine Crockett and businessman Ahmad Hassan in the primary on March 3.

Instead, they published it on YouTube and Colbert, whose show is ending in May, blasted his network for cowing to the censorious Trump.

But under the FCC’s equal-time rule, Colbert would have been obligated to have Crockett on the show. And potentially host the two Republican primary candidates as well.

CBS’s lawyers advised against putting it on television.

“’The Late Show’ decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal time options,” the network said in a statement.

Talarico milked it for all it was worth.

“This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see. His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert,” Talarico claimed on X.

“Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas.”

I give the wannabe Senator an A for bravado, but the only thing flipping after an interview with him, are the light switches to go night night.

(on top of that, Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Texas since 1994)

Their First Amendment warrior charade, however, and claims the Trump admin wants to shut them down, did spur people to loosen their wallets. Within 24 hours of the interview, Talarico raked in $2.5 million.

“This is a campaign of, by, and for the people — so I’m proud that neighbors from all across our state and country stood together to defend free speech,” Talarico said in a statement.

And yet, the real story was more simple: the network was just abiding by FCC rules.

The FCC chairman Brendan Carr told Buck Sexton that Colbert and Talarico “concocted a scheme to try to drive views and clicks and donations and, apparently, votes, to claim falsely that the government somehow censored their program.”

As a result, Talarico, like every other lefty politician got his “I fought Trump” moment to tout.

And Colbert, who promoted himself to general in the resistance army years ago, awarded himself another medal of honor in the protracted Battle of Orange Man Bad.

“Let’s just call this what it is,” Colbert said. “Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”

And all Colbert does is complain that his free speech is being snuffed out by Trump. It’s a cornerstone of his long running campaign to bolster the myth that he was cancelled by CBS for his anti-Trump crusade, not his bloated budget, shrinking ratings and turning his show into a poor man’s version of MSNBC’s greatest hits.

Colbert ceased being haha funny a decade ago.

Now he’s just a head shaking kind of funny. Like “huh, isn’t he peculiar, dancing around with people in syringe costumes to push his audience to take a vaccine and hurling f bombs at our president.”

Colbert has become a parasite, subsisting on the thin skin of Trump. Without our current occupant of the White House, he’d have to tell real jokes. Maybe entertain the entire country, not just offer political takes to his echo chamber.

Talarico, Colbert said, “was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast…And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Oh, he very much enjoyed talking about it.

And Crockett, who never misses a chance to proclaim herself a victim, actually offered a rare moment of clarity that it clearly gave her opponent a “boost.” She told reporters “because of a fear that the FCC may say something to them and that there may have been advice to just have me on and then they could clear the [equal-time] issue.

“It was my understanding that someone, somewhere decided, ‘We just don’t want to do that. Instead, we’re going to just do it this way.’”

That’s right, it looked more like a Dem on Dem hit.