Ahead of November’s midterm elections, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel wants to do his part to help Democrats win by interviewing Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Unfortunately for him, the FCC has decided to take a closer look at its equal time rules, which led Kimmel to mourn on Wednesday that his Talarico interview will have to be exclusively posted to YouTube.
Kimmel portrayed the decision to interview Talarico as nothing out of the ordinary, “Tomorrow night, I'll be interviewing James Talarico tomorrow night under unusual circumstances. For a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus of our show, in fact, I've been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all. Just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, et cetera, et cetera. I have interviewed a lot of political candidates, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.”
Jimmy Kimmel announces he will be interview James Talarico, but due to FCC equal time concerns, the interview will be put on YouTube. Kimmel doesn't seem to understand why this is suddenly a concern, "I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015. And at… pic.twitter.com/fpSmI33X3y
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) September 10, 2026
He also recalled, “I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015. And at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the nominee in 2016. But for some reason, and I can't seem to figure out what that reason is—something has changed.”
Continuing with his lamentations, Kimmel added, “Now that he's president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network: ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple editorial decisions, guest bookings, it would seem they don't like. And so, 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. It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV.”
Kimmel concluded with a plea for the audience to vote, “So, if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you'll have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel where you will see it in its entirety, and thank goodness we have that, because in the America we live in right now, this is the best we can do. Until November, of course. Make sure you register to vote, by the way. That's the most important thing you can do.”
Something that has changed is that all of the GOP examples Kimmel cited were from at least a decade ago. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is now just another liberal show. Kimmel and Cruz did have their famous basketball game in June 2018, but Cruz would not have met the FCC’s definition of a candidate at that point. To that point, if Kimmel actually believes that interviewing Talarico is that important, he could have easily gotten around the equal time rule by interviewing Talarico as recently as last week before the 60-day window opened, but Jimmy Kimmel Live! decided they wanted an extra-long holiday break.
Here is a transcript for the September 9 show:
ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
9/9/2026
11:44 PM ET
JIMMY KIMMEL: Tomorrow night, I'll be interviewing James Talarico tomorrow night under unusual circumstances. For a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus of our show, in fact, I've been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all. Just like Letterman did, Leno did, Arsenio, et cetera, et cetera. I have interviewed a lot of political candidates, from Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump himself.
I interviewed Donald Trump when he was running for president in 2015. And at that time, when he was the one sitting next to me, he seemed to have no problem with the idea of talk show hosts interviewing candidates. In fact, he was very eager to come back for another interview, which he did just before he became the nominee in 2016. But for some reason, and I can't seem to figure out what that reason is—something has changed.
Now that he's president, his FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network: ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, based on simple editorial decisions, guest bookings, it would seem they don't like. And so, 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. It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV.
So, if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow, you'll have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! YouTube channel where you will see it in its entirety, and thank goodness we have that, because in the America we live in right now, this is the best we can do. Until November, of course. Make sure you register to vote, by the way. That's the most important thing you can do.
