Censorship Comes for Stephen Colbert
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Stephen Colbert’s Late Show ends in May, and he’s in almost open warfare with his soon-to-be ex-bosses at CBS. Last night, he had planned to broadcast an interview with James Talarico, a member of the Texas state House who is running in a heated Democratic primary for United States Senate. But it was not to be. At the start of his show, Colbert told viewers that CBS had barred him from airing the interview, citing threats from Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. (You may remember Carr as the guy who sounded like a cartoon mobster while trying to get Jimmy Kimmel fired—“We can do this the easy way or the hard way”—drawing a rebuke from Senator Ted Cruz.) Colbert savaged CBS. He said that the network had told him not to talk about it, which …
