Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr accused "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert and Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico of spreading a "hoax" about their interview segment.

Colbert claimed during his Monday-night show that the FCC's new guidance on the equal time rule forced CBS to block Talarico from appearing on his program.

'This was a decision by Colbert, by Talarico to put a hoax out there that they knew the media would run for purposes of Talarico, apparently, scoring political points against Jasmine Crockett.'

"[Talarico] 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," Colbert told his viewers.

CBS released a statement explaining that Colbert's show was "provided legal guidance" that broadcasting the interview "could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates" running against Talarico for the U.S. Senate seat in Texas. The network stated that it "presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled," but that Colbert's team instead "decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel."

During a Thursday episode of "The Glenn Beck Program," Glenn Beck asked Carr whether the FCC had provided any legal guidance to CBS concerning the interview. Carr insisted the FCC had not.

He told Beck, "I woke up Tuesday morning and logged onto social media, and that was the first time that I'd even heard about this. And I woke up to a politician claiming that the FCC had somehow not aired — is what they said — the FCC refused to air this segment, and that wasn't true at all."

"Not only was that not true, but the subsequent claim that it was CBS that refused to air it was also proved to be a hoax as well," Carr continued. "In fact, CBS, apparently, had advised Colbert they could run the exact interview that they wanted, and they just needed to be mindful that it could trigger an equal time obligation for other candidates."

Stephen Colbert. Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images

He accused Colbert of running a "hoax," arguing that "he knew he could fool ... the legacy media by claiming he was censored."

Carr speculated that the alleged trick aimed to give Talarico "a leg up" on his Democrat opponent, Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas.

"This was a decision by Colbert, by Talarico to put a hoax out there that they knew the media would run for purposes of Talarico, apparently, scoring political points against Jasmine Crockett," Carr told Beck.

"The View." Photo by Lou Rocco/American Broadcasting Companies Inc. via Getty Images

Beck also questioned Carr about "The View" after reports surfaced that the show is facing an FCC investigation for possible equal time violations.

Carr explained that "The View" has argued that it is a "bona fide" news program, meaning that it should be exempt from the equal time rule, which would allow the ABC program to have a political candidate on the show without providing an equal opportunity to other candidates running in the same election.

Carr insisted that "The View" has "not made the case to the FCC that they do, in fact, qualify for the exception to the rule."

"And so we have started an enforcement inquiry, taking enforcement actions to explore this issue with them and move forward," he stated, adding that the FCC is "actively looking" at the show's claim that it is a bona fide news program.

CBS, ABC, Talarico's campaign, and representatives for "The Late Show," "The View," and Colbert did not respond to a request for comment.

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'Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas' brings scriptural authenticity to Nativity story

Director David L. Cunningham brought some old-school Disney magic to his latest project.

The Hollywood veteran recalled how Walt Disney often appeared on camera to personally introduce the projects closest to his heart, putting his unmistakable stamp on them.

'By taking out the hardship and the risk, you diminish the courage that Mary and Joseph had, their faith, and so much of the sacrifice.'

So when Cunningham envisioned a fresh, authentic take on the Christmas story, he wondered if another icon could do the honors. And, as fate would have it, his producing partner knew Kevin Costner personally.

The busy film legend agreed to join the project, with one caveat.

“He insisted on bringing his story into it … and the pieces fell together,” Cunningham tells Align.

'Unifying celebration'

“Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas,” debuting Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC before hitting Hulu the following day, does more than put the Christ back in Christmas.

The special lets Costner share some personal anecdotes regarding the earliest days of his acting career, including how he participated in a Christmas story production with less than Hollywood-style results.

He improved over time, of course.

“The First Christmas” introduces us to Mary and Joseph, a young couple facing incredible hardships along with the most important pregnancy … ever.

“The intent was to try and find a unifying celebration of the story,” Cunningham says. “Let’s all get behind what matters the most. Jesus was brought into this world in this amazing way. … The goal wasn’t to put a spin on something but to revisit the ancient texts and try to honor it as much as possible.”

Not too 'cozy'

“The First Christmas” pushes past misconceptions about the holiday, blending polished dramatic beats with commentary bringing critical context each step of the way. That approach worked well with the material, the director says, comparing the expert commentary to “miniature podcasts” that pop in between dramatic elements.

“We didn’t want a theological, wag-your-finger thing,” he notes, but he also wanted to remove the “cozy interpretations” many have of the Nativity.

“By taking out the hardship and the risk, you diminish the courage that Mary and Joseph had, their faith, and so much of the sacrifice,” he says.

“There’s nothing wrong with having the cozy little Nativity, with the angels looking on, but let’s go back and revisit this and say, ‘Hey, what does the Scripture say and why?’”

The special features “talking head” interstitials from voices stateside and beyond, echoing Christianity’s global reach and impact.

“The West doesn’t have the corner on the [Christian] market,” Cunningham says, noting a spiritual rise in Brazil and other nations in recent years.

Sticking to the text

Cunningham is no stranger to faith-based productions, starting with one of his earliest projects: 2001’s “To End All Wars.” The film recalled the fact-based story of Japanese POW camp captives who embraced God to both endure and forgive their captors.

Those experiences have given him insight into Christian projects that connect with the masses and, more importantly, ring true.

“When a biblical movie works, it sticks to the text,” he says with a chuckle. “It also helps to have people who are leading the charge who believe in it.”

Cunningham studied faith-based films in film school, noting how the industry “lost the plot” over the years regarding Christian projects.

“We felt as Christians that somehow entertainment and Hollywood was of the devil. We didn’t want anything to do with it,” he says. “We just walked away from one of the most influential platforms there is.”

Russell Moccasin

Cinematic revolution

That, of course, has changed dramatically over the past 20-odd years, from “The Passion of the Christ” to 2023’s “Sound of Freedom.” The clunky, low-budget stories of the recent past have been replaced by slick, soulful projects that reflect both faith and a dramatic upgrade in craftsmanship.

He name-checks “The Chosen” creator Dallas Jenkins and Jon and Andrew Erwin for being part of this cinematic revolution.

Cunningham also used his personal experiences to help inspire and shape “The First Christmas,” echoing what Costner brought to the project. He recalls his own days as a young father, with all the fear and uncertainty that came along with it.

“I’m walking out the door with this child. ... We had a car seat ready to go,” he says of his earliest hours as a parent. “Can you imagine a young couple in a cave when infant mortality was through the roof? Now you’re being born into this world that’s incredibly brutal and cruel. You’re a young couple, and by the way, that’s the Son of God.

“No pressure,” he says.

'Terrible reporter': Trump eviscerates 'fake' news ABC — calls for FCC to consider yanking license

President Donald Trump called on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to investigate ABC News and consider pulling its license for its “fake” reporting.

'I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong.'

During Trump’s bilateral meeting with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, an ABC News reporter pressed the president about the delayed release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

“Why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now?” the ABC reporter asked.

“It’s not the question that I mind; it’s your attitude,” Trump replied.

“It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who’s highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. You could even ask that same exact question nicely.”

“You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter,” the president remarked.

Trump reiterated that he had “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” adding, “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”

President Donald Trump, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

He slammed the legacy media outlet for ignoring the relationships liberal political figures had with the sex predator.

“All these guys were friends of his. You don’t even talk about those people,” Trump said.

“I just got a little report, and I put it in my pocket, of all the money [Epstein has] given to Democrats. He gave me none. Zero.”

He called ABC a “crappy company.”

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong,” Trump declared, presumably referring to the news outlet’s broadcasting license obtained through the Federal Communications Commission.

“We have a great … chairman, who should look at that,” he added.

“I think when you come in and when you’re 97% negative to Trump and then Trump wins the election in a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible and you’re not credible as a reporter.”

Trump told the ABC News reporter that she could not ask any more questions during the bilateral meeting.

ABC and the FCC did not respond to a request for comment.

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‘Not Our Mess’: Erika Kirk Speaks Out On Jimmy Kimmel’s Crass Comments About Husband’s Assassination

'I don't want it'

Liberal media remains DEAD SILENT on Biden FBI's Arctic Frost operation against conservatives

Recent history suggests that the liberal media will go to great lengths to amplify a story if it appears beneficial to the left even if the story lacks any basis in fact.

Among the many cases that conform to this apparent pattern were liberal outlets' hysterical coverage of the Russian collusion hoax, Joe Biden's supposed competence as president, Jussie Smollett's apparent hate hoax, the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, and Covington Catholic students' harassment by radicals during the 2019 March for Life in the national capital.

On the flip side, factual stories that pose a political threat to the liberal powers that be tend to get little to no mainstream coverage. This is especially true of the latest revelations about the Biden FBI's Arctic Frost operation.

According to recent analysis conducted by the media watchdog outfit NewsBusters, ABC, CBS, and NBC News avoided the story in their television broadcasts in recent days.

'Not one single broadcast network aired one solitary second.'

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents on Oct. 6 detailing how the Biden FBI sought private cellphone records from at least nine Republican lawmakers during Operation Arctic Frost — an operation that set the stage for at least one case brought against President Donald Trump by former Attorney General Merrick Garland's dubiously appointed special counsel, Jack Smith.

Grassley released additional documents last week showing that Smith and his team subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities as part of what the Iowa senator called a "fishing expedition."

Blaze News previously noted that as of midday Thursday, liberal news outfits such as ABC News, the Atlantic, CBS News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post had yet to cover the latest tranche of documents exposing how the Biden lawfare regime hounded American conservatives across the country in their print coverage.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The media blackout was apparently just as bad when it came to television coverage.

ABC, CBS, and NBC News not only neglected to cover the Arctic Frost bombshells on their flagship Wednesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday morning shows but apparently dodged over the weekend as well, reported NewsBusters.

"There was no discussion, at any time and on any of the Sunday shows, about the use of the extraordinary powers of federal law enforcement against those perceived to be in support of President Donald Trump ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run," wrote NewsBusters analyst Jorge Bonilla.

"There was no discussion about the subpoenas, obtained in secret, against 197 individuals — including multiple Members of Congress. There was no mention of the slew of subpoenas against nonpartisan organizations perceived to be in support of the former president," continued Bonilla. "There was no mention of the secretive nature of the subpoenas issued to banks and Big Tech organizations, which came with their own gag order, which may well constitute an impeachable offense for the judges that issued such orders."

"Had any of this happened under a Trump administration, you’d have everyone across the dial howling bloody murder," added Bonilla.

"Not one single broadcast network aired one solitary second," Media Research Center President David Bozell noted on Friday. "Normally they'll mention it in the most innocuous way so they can later say, 'We covered it,' but this time they didn't even bother."

Blaze News confirmed that, except for one sympathetic NBC News article about Jack Smith on Wednesday, news outlets ABC, CBS, and NBC did not report on the Arctic Frost allegations made last week.

Rather than address the historic weaponization of the FBI against sitting senators and conservative groups, talking heads on the liberal networks instead exhausted airtime yammering about the construction of the White House ballroom, the potential expiration of SNAP benefits, Prince Andrew's loss of title, and talk of the weather.

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Woke CEOs mocked conservatives. Now the joke’s on them.

Corporate America is bending to conservatives’ market influence. Not out of sudden ideological sympathy, but because conservatives have more economic power than the left — and they’ve stopped pretending not to notice.

For years, corporations ignored conservative concerns. Worse, they often went out of their way to antagonize them, stripping away team mascots like the Redskins and Indians, embracing diversity quotas, and saturating entertainment with left-wing tropes. The squeaky wheel got the grease, and the left made all the noise.

Free markets punish bad bets more effectively than Washington ever could. Let them.

Conservatives, meanwhile, were taken for granted. Corporate leaders assumed they would keep buying no matter how many insults were thrown their way. For a long time, they were right.

That ended when conservatives started fighting back. Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney stunt turned into a disaster. Victoria’s Secret collapsed under its “new image” campaign. Cracker Barrel’s woke makeover backfired so badly its chairs stopped rocking. And when employees mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination, corporations finally began to realize that “the customer is always right” still applies.

Numbers don’t lie

Corporations aren’t embracing conservatives because they’ve had a change of heart. They’re doing it because they need to survive.

The 2024 election was a wake-up call: Conservative voters outnumbered liberals 35% to 23%. Add moderates, and non-liberals outnumbered liberals more than three to one.

Conservatives overwhelmingly vote Republican. Ninety percent cast ballots for Trump. Pew data shows a majority of middle- and upper-middle-income Americans lean Republican — and 51% of Americans identify as middle class. That’s a lot of disposable income.

Family size makes the math even stronger. The Institute for Family Studies reports that counties where Trump won big also have higher birth rates: 1.76 compared to the national average of 1.63. Harris counties, by contrast, averaged just 1.37. Republicans also want bigger families: half want three or more kids, compared to only 31% of Democrats.

Bigger families and higher incomes mean bigger market clout. And the left’s most extreme advocates — the loudest drivers of corporate wokeness — are a small minority inside an already shrinking ideological bloc.

Why the shift happened

So why did corporations bow to the left for so long? Two reasons.

First, executives themselves lean left. Pew Research found upper-income Americans tilt Democrat, and CEOs have marched steadily leftward over the last two decades. Second, conservatives tolerated it. They didn’t punish woke messaging, making it appear costless for companies to indulge their leadership’s politics.

That illusion is gone. Conservative consumers are awake. And companies are finally capitulating to reality.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Don’t let government ruin it

This is why Republicans should resist the urge to meddle. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr made a mistake threatening ABC over Jimmy Kimmel. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”? Let’s not.

That kind of government action obscures the real shift — a market correction, not a political one.

Markets speak louder than regulators. If conservatives let economics do the work, corporations will continue adjusting out of necessity. But if government steps in, companies will chalk the change up to political coercion, not consumer demand, and drift back toward the left as soon as administrations change.

Already the left is trying to spin it that way, casting Jimmy Kimmel as a martyr for “free expression” instead of what he is: a bad business decision. The left wants companies to believe government, not consumers, forced the pivot.

Conservatives know better. Free markets punish bad bets more effectively than Washington. Let them.

'Why Are You Against That?' George Stephanopoulos Runs Cover for Democrats Following Shutdown Vote

Good Morning America cohost and former Clinton White House official George Stephanopoulos parroted Democratic talking points in an interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), blaming Republicans for the government shutdown hours after Senate Democrats rejected a bill that would have kept the government open.

The post 'Why Are You Against That?' George Stephanopoulos Runs Cover for Democrats Following Shutdown Vote appeared first on .

Colbert and Talarico promoted phony censorship ‘hoax,’ FCC chair tells Glenn Beck

'Kevin Costner Presents: The First Christmas' brings scriptural authenticity to Nativity story

'Unifying celebration'

Not too 'cozy'

Sticking to the text

Cinematic revolution

'Terrible reporter': Trump eviscerates 'fake' news ABC — calls for FCC to consider yanking license

Liberal media remains DEAD SILENT on Biden FBI's Arctic Frost operation against conservatives

Stephanopoulos Cuts Off J.D. Vance Mid-Interview, Discredits His Own Show: All The Questions From ABC’s This Week

Report: Major CBS, ABC, PBS Shows Fail To Mention Jay Jones Scandal Once

Woke CEOs mocked conservatives. Now the joke’s on them.

Numbers don’t lie

Why the shift happened

Don’t let government ruin it

'Why Are You Against That?' George Stephanopoulos Runs Cover for Democrats Following Shutdown Vote

Trump Admin Sues Harvard for Withholding Race-Related Admissions Data

A gay whistleblower just punked Colorado’s DEI machine

'Unifying celebration'

Not too 'cozy'

Sticking to the text

Cinematic revolution

Numbers don’t lie

Why the shift happened

Don’t let government ruin it

We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.