James Talarico Rips Decision to Move Jimmy Kimmel Interview to YouTube: “The Most Dangerous Form of Cancel Culture”

Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico is ripping the “government censorship” from the Trump administration and the FCC, which forced Thursday’s interview with ABC‘s Jimmy Kimmel Live! to be limited to YouTube.

“I think it’s the most dangerous form of cancel culture,” Talarico said Thursday. “People at the top, powerful politicians, powerful media executives, censoring what we watch, what we read, what we say. And that, again, should be a concern to everyone who believes in the First Amendment and believes in the freedom of speech.”

Talarico made the comments in an interview with Symone Sanders on MS NOW’s The Weeknight, which will run Thursday evening. The program recorded the episode in a live taping in its new members lounge in Dallas, Texas.

Intriguingly, Talarico told Sanders that he still thinks there’s a chance the interview does air on ABC in some form.

“I’m still hopeful that we can have this interview on the air. So we’ll see what happens tonight,” he said.

Kimmel on Wednesday told his audience that his show would move the Talarico interview to YouTube, citing the FCC’s targeting of ABC, and talk shows in general: “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 Terico will not air on television,” he said.

“You know, for a lot of years, for the whole 20-plus years 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, etc. etc., I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates. From Hillary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump,” Kimmel added. “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.”

Talarico has been at the heart of the matter: It was his appearance on The View that triggered an FCC investigation into ABC, and an appearance booked for Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS was similarly moved to YouTube to avoid scrutiny from the regulator.