CBS Tries to Kill Stephen Colbert's Interview With James Talarico; Makes it Go Viral Instead

Someone at the network needs to Google "The Streisand Effect"

Stephen Colbert and guest Rep. James Talarico, whose interview with Stephen Colbert did not air on CBS Monday night. (Photo: Scott Kowalchyk ©2026 CBS Broadcasting Inc.)

In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued a photographer who posted an aerial photo of her Malibu estate to a website documenting coastline erosion, arguing that the image — one of thousands included in the project — was a violation of her privacy.

The case was dismissed, but the publicity around it led to a surge of traffic to the previously obscure site — and resulted in far more people seeing the image of Streisand’s beachfront mansion than if she had done nothing. The incident inspired a neologism, “The Streisand effect,” to describe attempts to hide, suppress, or censor information that consequently brings more attention to the thing being buried.

I mention this because someone at CBS should probably take the two minutes it requires to read the Wikipedia page for “Streisand effect,” which the network has really mastered lately.

The most recent glaring example of this phenomenon came Monday, when Stephen Colbert was scheduled to interview Texas state Rep. James Talarico on The Late Show. The Democrat is currently running for the Senate and, if he is successful in the primary, will face off against Sen. John Cornyn (or Texas AG Ken Paxton or Rep. Wesley Hunt) in the fall.

Talarico sat with Colbert for a 14-minute conversation about religion, politics, and his goal of flipping Texas blue. It was a substantive interview in which Talarico also addressed comments he allegedly made about former Rep. Colin Allred.

Despite its newsworthiness, the segment with Talarico did not air in Monday’s episode of The Late Show. “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,” Colbert announced at the top of the program.

“Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this…let’s talk about this.”

Colbert went on to explain that the FCC’s so-called “equal time rule,” which requires broadcast networks to give equal access to political candidates, does not currently apply to news or talk show interviews with politicians.

But earlier this year, FCC chair Brendan Carr issued a letter saying he was considering dropping the exception for talk shows, “because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes,” Colbert said. “Well, sir, you’re chairman of the FCC, so FCC you, because I think you are motivated by partisan purposes yourself, sir. You smelt it, because you dealt it. You are Dutch ovening America’s airwaves.”

While the FCC has not done away with the exception yet, “My network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had,” said Colbert, whose top-rated show was canceled by CBS last year in what was widely viewed as an act of appeasement to the current occupant of the White House.

Colbert, whose final episode airs in May, suggested this latest move by CBS represented more corporate knee-bending. (In a statement to multiple media outlets, CBS denied forcing Colbert to pull the interview, saying it merely provided “legal guidance” about the FCC’s equal-time rule.)

“Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert said. “He’s like a toddler with too much screen time. He gets cranky and then drops a load in his diapers.”

The network was apparently so firm about not airing any Talarico content that Colbert couldn’t even use a real photo or drawing of the candidate on the air (instead, he used a stock image of someone vaguely resembling Talarico).

“I am going to interview James Talarico tonight, but it’s not going to be on The Late Show,” Colbert said. “It’s going to be on The Late Show‘s YouTube page. The network says I can’t give you a URL or a QR code, but I promise you, if you go to our YouTube page, you’ll find it.”

Carr is so serious about cracking down on “partisanship” on the airwaves that a few weeks ago, “the FCC opened an investigation into ABC’s The View after their James Talarico interview,” Colbert noted. “I cannot show you any form of James Talarico.”

It is not clear how this new policy will affect The Late Show going forward. The program often features politicians and other newsmakers, and will be on the air for three more months (unless CBS decides to change that, too). Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is currently running for re-election, is scheduled to appear on Wednesday.

But if Carr is using his regulatory powers to silence politicians who oppose the Trump agenda, his strategy is backfiring spectacularly. As of Tuesday afternoon, the online-only Talarico interview has racked up more than 2 million views, with the segment in which Colbert explained why CBS tried to suppress it not far behind. (By comparison, an interview with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro a few weeks ago currently has less than 500,000 views.)

The Talarico misstep is the latest Streisandian embarrassment for CBS, which was officially acquired (along with the rest of Paramount) by David Ellison’s Skydance last summer.

In December, Bari Weiss, the “anti-woke” crusader handpicked by Ellison to run CBS News, abruptly pulled a 60 Minutes report on detainees at CECOT, the notorious El Salvador prison, shortly before it was scheduled to air. But the controversy exploded and a version of the report leaked online. It soon racked up millions of views on YouTube and TikTok, reaching a far wider audience than your average 60 Minutes investigation. (The segment finally aired in an episode of 60 Minutes scheduled opposite an NFL playoff game, as if to bury the piece forever.) Meanwhile, Weiss’s attempt to remake the CBS Evening News by appointing a MAGA-friendly anchor, Tony Dokoupil, has only further damaged ratings. According to Status, the network’s rightward shift reportedly factored into Anderson Cooper’s decision to leave 60 Minutes after nearly two decades as a correspondent.

As twisted as it sounds, the folks at Paramount Skydance care less about how many people are watching 60 Minutes or The Late Show than they do about staying on Trump’s good side. The company is currently locked in a war with Netflix to acquire Warner Bros. The president has made it clear which side he is on, saying that a Netflix-Warner Bros. merger “could be a problem.”

At a recent senate hearing about the deal, Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos was grilled by lawmakers, including Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who denounced the streaming service a “left-wing company.” On Tuesday — a day after CBS killed the Talarico interview — Warner Bros. officially reopened talks with Paramount.

Surely, just a coincidence.

Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian