James Talarico Warns FCC ‘Censorship’ Is ‘Coordinated Effort’ by ‘Powerful’ to ‘Control’ Americans

Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D) warned that the Trump administration and “powerful corporate media executives” were working in a “coordinated effort” to “control” what Americans watch using Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules to implement “censorship.”

The comments come after two interviews involving Talarico, who is currently running in primary against Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) to compete for his state’s senatorial seat, have made headlines in the past week.

Talarico had been scheduled to appear on The Late Show on Monday but, when viewers tuned in, host Stephen Colbert claimed that CBS lawyers had told him “in no uncertain terms” that he “could not have” his booked guest “on the broadcast” citing the FCC’s “equal time” rule. The segment was later uploaded to YouTube. CBS rejected Colbert’s account and said it was merely providing “legal guidance.”

Then on Wednesday, FCC chairman Brendan Carr confirmed a probe into ABC’s The View for staging its interview with Talarico weeks apart from primary rival Crockett.

The Texas lawmaker was interviewed on Thursday’s Morning Joe and described the instances as a “threat” to First Amendment rights, urging citizens to “stand up” to “this extremism and this corruption.”

He continued, when asked about Jeffrey Epstein, to call the FCC enforcement against The View and CBS’s “censorship” of his interview a “pattern” and proof of a “coordinated effort” by the “powerful”:

That appearance on The View is what started this whole drama, because that’s when the FCC launched an investigation into The View for that appearance, which then led to this censorship on CBS with The Late Show. So, this has been a pattern.

This is a coordinated effort between the most powerful people in the country, both the most powerful politicians in the Trump administration and the most powerful corporate media executives. And so, it’s all the people at the top trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read, what we learn about the world.

And that’s exactly what we’ve seen in this Epstein case. It’s powerful people, both people with political power, people with economic power, people with power in the media, colluding and conspiring to hurt our neighbors. And it’s why we all have to come together across these manufactured divisions, these algorithms that tear us apart, these news networks that tear us apart. We have to resist all that.

Remember what we have in common as Americans and take power back away from the people at the top and bring it back into our communities.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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