On The Weeknight, Angelo Carusone discusses the Trump administration’s efforts to silence media critics

SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND (CO-HOST): Do you believe Colbert or as someone at this table who shall remain nameless said, perhaps they overreacted? Or do you believe CBS? 

EUGENE DANIELS (CO-HOST): And Colbert did say some uncertain terms. 

SANDERS-TOWNSEND: And what is that?

ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Yeah, that was — I think it depends on what part of Colbert’s statement you’re asking me what I believe. 

SANDERS-TOWNSEND: I want to know about all of it. 

CARUSONE: Because I think that the part about — the point that he’s making that the FCC and the Trump administration is trying to silence and suppress critics and control the airwaves is true. And, you know, then they start to lose the thread when you get into the specifics. You were in your intro, you pointed out that they just changed a rule a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, they just changed that rule, and they’ve already applied it to The View and ABC coincidentally for an interview that they did with James Talarico. 

So, I do think it’s important to note that they have already demonstrated a climate. Now, they didn’t fine or sanction. They did an investigation, which in some ways is even worse. Sometimes you’d rather just take the fine, you know what you’re going to get. Investigation, they’ll just keep digging. They’ll keep pulling threads. They have you under their thumb, they put the screws to you. So, I think they — whatever they said, I think they’re both kind of telling the truth. I know for sure that I don’t think Bari Weiss is out there advocating on behalf of Democrats and saying, “We need to be fair to everybody here.” I certainly don’t think that’s what was motivating them. I do think they were using the FCC as cover. I don’t think they want to, you know, let Colbert do the things that he does. 

And more importantly, I think they want to be a lead steer for other broadcasters to say it’s time to get in line, because time and again, that is what they’ve done. They’ve been the first one out of the gate to tell everybody else this is the new norm. And if you want to avoid trouble, do what we do. Sign off your news broadcast with salutes to Marco Rubio, okay, and keep yourself out of trouble. And so the details, yeah, maybe they’re both exaggerating a little bit. But what he said about them controlling the airwaves is true, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.