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Jimmy Kimmel's James Talarico interview tops 7M views after ABC pull

tvSep 13, 20263688

Jimmy Kimmel posted an interview with Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico to YouTube after ABC declined to air it amid the FCC’s renewed equal-time scrutiny; the upload had drawn about 6.8 million views as of Saturday evening. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly accused Talarico of running a "hoax" to generate "clicks and donations" and shared a meme mocking the candidate. Talarico called the move government censorship and labeled the video "the interview Trump's FCC doesn't want you to see." Kimmel said the FCC's equal-time enforcement attempts were an effort to "make our editorial decisions for us." The White House described Kimmel as "play acting" and said Carr "has not threatened him regarding interviewing James Talarico, or any other candidate." Earlier this year Stephen Colbert posted a Talarico interview that later reached 9.6 million YouTube views, a comparison cited in coverage of the Kimmel episode. A Talarico campaign spokesperson had not immediately responded to requests for comment.

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