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    Colbert UNLOADS on CBS Lawyers Over Censorship (Again)

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    Stephen Colbert went off on CBS again Tuesday night, holding up a network press release about his show and calling it “a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it’s trying to cover.”

    The drama started when CBS blocked Colbert from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat running in the state’s U.S. Senate primary, without offering equal time to his opponents.

    The reason? FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened last month to enforce equal time rules on late-night talk shows, which have been exempt from those regulations for decades.

    “He had not gotten rid of it yet, but CBS generously did it for him,” Colbert said, as his audience jeered at the mention of the network.

    CBS released a statement earlier that day disputing Colbert’s version of events—without ever talking to him first, according to the host.

    Colbert wasn’t having it. He pointed out that network lawyers approve every word of every script that goes on air. They knew exactly what he was going to say Monday night because they told him what to say.

    “I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never ever happened before,” he said. “And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal-time exception, and I used that language. So, I don’t know what this is about.”

    To drive the point home, Colbert picked up the press release with a dog waste bag and carefully disposed of it.

    He insisted he’s not mad at CBS and doesn’t want an adversarial relationship with the network, which has announced “The Late Show” will be canceled in May. But he sounded genuinely baffled.

    “I’m just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies,” he said.

    The Talarico interview CBS wouldn’t let him air? It’s now on YouTube, where it’s racked up millions of views—far more than it ever would have gotten on broadcast television.

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