Stephen Colbert Slams CBS Defense Over Scrapped Interview

Stephen Colbert blasted CBS on his late-night show Tuesday night, contradicting the network’s claim that it didn’t block his interview with Texas state Representative and Senate candidate James Talarico.

On his show, Colbert displayed a printed copy of the network’s statement, which said, “THE LATE SHOW was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico.”

“The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled,” the statement continued. “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.”

Colbert said that this statement was incorrect, emphasizing that “every word” of his script in the squashed Talarico interview was approved by CBS’s lawyers, as is the case with every script.

“In fact, between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage,” Colbert said Tuesday. “I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers—something that had never ever happened before—and they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal-time exception. And I used that language. So, I don’t know what this is about.”’

Colbert said that he didn’t “want an adversarial relationship with the network. I’ve never had one,” and lamented the fact that CBS’s parent corporation appears to have preemptively abided by the FCC’s new interpretation of the equal-time rule, which used to exempt talk shows that were not considered “bona fide news” until FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump, issued new guidance last month.

“I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies,” Colbert added. “Come on, you’re Paramount! No! You’re more than that, you’re Paramount Plus. Plus what? I guess we’re all going to find out pretty soon.”

While Monday’s interview didn’t air, it has gotten millions of views on YouTube and other platforms that it wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Now CBS and Paramount, owned by Donald Trump ally David Ellison, are receiving negative publicity over their decision, as is the FCC, led by Trump-appointed Brendan Carr. Colbert’s contract ends in May, and the next three months are going to be interesting.

When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded the urgent demolition of her agency’s 171-year-old campus in Washington, D.C., she claimed the structures were unsafe. But it turns out the more immediate threat to workers wasn’t the presence of “malicious insiders” looking to exploit the site’s weaknesses—it’s asbestos, Migrant Insider reported Tuesday.

Department of Homeland Security employees who worked at the agency’s facilities at St. Elizabeths described workers in full hazmat suits working alongside plainclothes DHS staff.

“It’s surreal,” one former DHS aide told Migrant Insider. “You’ve got guys in full PPE taking out asbestos, and then DHS staff in shirts and ties walking right by, breathing the same air.”

Employees were not offered masks or air quality tests—let alone remote work options. And the site lacks the proper signage alerting workers to the presence of harmful carcinogens.

“There’s one small sign in a side entrance indicating the area is a health hazard,” the former aide told Migrant Insider. “If you come in the main way you’d never know you’re walking into a demolition zone with asbestos in the air.”

Several staffers told Migrant Insider that they’d been largely left in the dark about construction, only receiving after the fact notices that did not mention any specific health risks. Others said they only learned about the construction after they saw sealed doorways and workers in protective gear. When staffers raised concerns about air quality to their supervisors, they were referred to building management, who offered scant answers.

“There’s this attitude that because this is a high‑security campus, they can do what they want and we’ll just deal with it,” one current DHS official told Migrant Insider. “But we’re talking about cancer‑causing dust in a federal workplace. People are scared, and they should be.”

The campus at St. Elizabeths is a national landmark originally built as a “Government Hospital for the Insane.” The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the D.C. Preservation League warned that Noem’s unilateral declaration to demolish the site was “problematic” and implied a “fundamental flaw” in her agency’s “security as a whole.”

The Make America Healthy Again campaign is now hinged on the idea that America wants to see two old men strip.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. invited Kid Rock to participate in a bizarre marketing video for his public health policy Tuesday, encouraging the nation to “GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD” by showcasing a freakish, half-naked workout montage of the duo set to the country rapper’s song “Bawitdaba” (the song that Rock definitely did not lip-sync during Turning Point USA’s alternate Super Bowl halftime show).

The clip begins with Kennedy, 72, and Rock, 55, flexing without shirts before the camera pans to the taxidermied body of a brown bear wearing a gingham fedora. Cue the music.

Over the next 90 seconds, the pair are depicted eating a giant plate of steak and sauerkraut (in line with Kennedy’s steak-and-ferments-only diet), doing biceps curls, using the pull-down machine (with improper form), holding each other’s ankles for sit-ups, flipping the bird while riding a stationary bike in a sauna (so badass), and climbing into a cold plunge tub while still wearing jeans. They also play pickleball, and drink “WHOLE MILK” in the pool.

The video is, apparently, formally affiliated with the Department of Health and Human Services, as the end of the lifestyle advertisement prominently features the health agency’s logo, along with Kennedy’s campaign slogan, “Make America Healthy Again.”

Kennedy’s off-the-wall notions about health have already proved disastrous for the health agency.

During a measles outbreak in Texas last year, the virulent conspiracist refused to endorse the tried-and-true measles vaccine, recommending instead that susceptible residents self-medicate with vitamins. He has transformed HHS, replacing independent medical experts on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel with a hodgepodge of vaccine skeptics. He also overhauled the child vaccination schedule without notifying his staffers, a decision that could potentially affect vaccine access and insurance coverage for millions of American families in the coming years.

And last month, the health secretary unveiled the outcome of his department’s monthslong project to reimagine the food pyramid. The result: an upside-down triangle in which butter, steak, and cheese play a leading role.

The Trump administration tried to prevent late-night television host Stephen Colbert from airing his interview with Texas state Representative and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, but the attempt has backfired.

Instead of including the interview in his CBS show Monday night, which the network’s lawyers had warned against, Colbert posted the interview to YouTube and other social media channels, where it has already garnered millions of views on each platform, much more than a single TV broadcast of the show, which averages 2.3 million viewers.

Talarico himself posted the interview to his X account with the caption, “This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see.” It has gotten 8.3 million views as of this writing. On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s YouTube channel, the interview has 2.4 million views, and clips of the show on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook are also getting millions of viewers.

Colbert defied CBS by mentioning the interview during his show Monday night and urging viewers to watch it online. He also called out the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-appointed head, Brendan Carr, for the agency’s new rule requiring late-night talk shows to provide equal time for candidates across the political spectrum. Colbert highlighted a recent clip of Carr discussing both him and fellow late night host Jimmy Kimmel.

“If Kimmel or Colbert want to continue to do their programming, and they don’t want to have to comply with this requirement, then they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service, and that’s fine,” Carr said in the clip. Colbert took Carr’s advice and put his interview with Talarico online, where it has taken off, giving Colbert and Talarico more publicity than they would have had otherwise.

The far right is using the murder of a mother and one of her sons to attack transgender people, completely ignoring the fact that the shooter had massive Nazi tattoos.

The shooter, who police said was born with the name Robert Dorgan but also went by Roberta Esposito, fatally shot their ex-wife and son at a hockey game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on Monday night. Esposito then turned the gun on themself, dying of a self-inflicted wound.

According to divorce records obtained by The Providence Journal, Esposito’s wife initially said she ended their 25-year marriage due Esposito’s “Gender reassignment surgery, Narcissistic + personality disorder traits,” before crossing it out and writing “irreconcilable differences which caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.”

The usual online far-right ghouls descended upon the news, foaming at the mouth for another opportunity to demonize every single trans person based on Esposito’s actions.

“Transgenderism is a severe mental illness,” commentator Evan Kilgore stated. “It’s time to bring back insane asylums for people like this.”

“President Trump needs to re-open mental institutions, and society needs to stop celebrating & encouraging transgender status,” former Trump delegate Christian Ziegler said.

“The Rhode Island trans shooter tweeted YESTERDAY warning that you shouldn’t point out that ‘trans women’ are really men or they will go ‘berserk,’” Libs of TikTok wrote. “Transgender people are violent and a danger to society.”

All of these reactions glossed over two major things. First, Esposito was a registered Republican. And according to the account Libs of TikTok referenced, they were a vocal Trump supporter. Secondly, Esposito had a massive Nazi SS tattoo on their arm.

People usually don’t have Nazi tattoos that they display prominently unless they have Nazi sympathies. People like that have killed more people, and currently have the power to kill more people, than any transgender person. And yet the issue here for the right is the person’s gender identity rather than the fact that they had a symbol of hate on their body. Probably because they have more in common with Esposito than they want to admit.