Jimmy Kimmel turned to YouTube on Thursday night to house his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico — in light of fears that the FCC would punish ABC stations for running the chat.
“What are they so scared of you?” Kimmel asked the candidate. Said Talarico: “Well, they’re worried that we’re going to win this race in Texas. But we are the underdogs until the last vote is counted. We’re not just going up against the most corrupt politician in Texas. We’re going up against this entire corrupt system.”
Among the topics that Kimmel and Talarico discussed were him not taking money from corporate PACs, Trump’s relationship with Talarico’s opponent (Ken Paxton), the GOP attempting to suppress voting and how the teachings of Jesus had been corrupted by the MAGA movement.
“Scripture tells us that you can’t love God and hate other people,” Talarico said. “You can’t love God and abuse the immigrant. You can’t love God and oppress the poor. You can’t love God and bully the outcast … I was brought up to believe that in the face of a neighbor, we glimpse the face of God. Matthew 25 tells us Christians exactly how we’re going to be judged and how we’re going to be saved by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger.
“I often wonder what would Jesus do if he visited the U.S. Senate. I think he would tell the senators on the floor, ‘Depart from me, for I was hungry and you cut my food assistance. I was sick and you kicked me off Medicaid. I was a stranger and you deported me and my family.’ And then I think he would flip over those fancy desks on the floor of the U.S. Senate and demand that we take care of all of our neighbors, especially the least of these.”
Talarico also addressed the fact that his opponent, Paxton, was previously impeached by his fellow Republicans for bribery. “Ken Paxton gets rich on the public’s dime, and then he refuses to answer basic questions about that corruption,” Talarico said. “I mean, literally, any time someone asks him a hard question, he runs away. You can watch these videos of people asking him about his 15 homes, asking him about the THC ban in Texas, and he gets this terrified look on his face, and he just walks the other way. When I get hard questions on the campaign trail, I answer them, and that’s exactly what we should expect from our public officials in a democracy.”
On his actual ABC broadcast monologue Thursday, Kimmel told the audience that “this is — the show you’re watching — this is an unusual program for us because in a few minutes, I’m going to interview James Talarico — the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. But you’re not going to see it.”
Kimmel announced on his show Wednesday night that his interview with Talarico would not air on ABC and would instead be posted to YouTube, citing concerns about the FCC, which has previously threatened ABC station licenses and played a key role in Kimmel’s brief suspension in 2025.
“Out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense, my interview tomorrow with James Talarico will not air on television,” Kimmel said. “It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV.”
He expanded on the reason in his Thursday monologue: “I mentioned last night, this interview will not be televised because of threats from the FCC, led by Commissioner Brendan Carr, who says we do not have the right to interview whichever candidates we want to interview. Which is something we’ve been doing for twenty-plus years.
“This is yet another attack on free speech, something that has become all too familiar for us here at the show for us in the country,” Kimmel added. “The FCC wants to make it impossible for me to interview candidates by requiring that I interview every candidate on the ballot who asks for equal time. So not only would I have to interview James Talarico as a Republican opponent, Ken Paxton — which, by the way, I would love to do, call me. I have many questions for you. Our affiliates in Texas would have to give equal time to as many candidates as there are on the ballot, and there’s about 10 candidates on the ballot. But the White House, once again, is claiming that what I’m saying, which is clearly true, is not true.
“It’d be great news if we could do this the easy way instead of the hard way. That would be terrific.”
Asked by MS NOW about the interview before it was posted to YouTube, Talarico said he was “still hopeful” it would air on ABC. He called the FCC’s threats “the most dangerous form of cancel culture,” saying, “People at the top, powerful politicians, powerful media executives, censoring what we watch, what we read, what we say. And that, again, should be a concern to everyone who believes in the First Amendment and believes in the freedom of speech.”
It’s not the first time a late-night show has preempted an interview with the Texas Senate candidate. In February, Stephen Colbert said CBS executives pulled his interview with Talarico from the air over concerns about violating the FCC’s “equal time” rule, which requires broadcast stations to give equal time to political candidates when they appear on-air. While there are exemptions to the rule, Trump’s FCC chief Brendan Carr has been aggressive about clamping down on broadcast programs perceived as liberal. (The government agency is currently in a dispute with ABC’s “The View” and, in 2024, went after “Saturday Night Live” over a brief cameo by Kamala Harris.)
Ultimately, Colbert put his Talarico interview on YouTube, with the clip garnering 9.5 million views. The Talarico campaign raised $2.5 million in the 24 hours after Colbert revealed he was barred from airing the interview.
Here’s Kimmel’s interview with Talarico, posted Thursday night on YouTube: