Charisma Madarang
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Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images; Alberto Silva Fernandez/Getty Images 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.”
Kimmel highlighted that he interviewed Trump when he was running for president in 2015. “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,” said the host, adding that Trump was “very eager” to return before he became the nominee in 2016. Kimmel added, “But for some reason, and I can’t seem to figure out what that reason is, something has changed now that he is president.”
Now that Trump is president, Kimmel said that “his 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.” He said that “out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense,” his interview with Talarico will not air on television and be posted to YouTube instead.
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Talarico is facing a close race in Texas against state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Democrats have not won a national seat in Texas in over 30 years.
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“So if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you will have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube channel where you will see it in its entirety,” continued Kimmel. “And thank goodness we have that, because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do until November, of course. Make sure you’re registered to vote, by the way, because that’s the most important thing you can do.”
