The FCC’s Fight with Stephen Colbert

February 20, 2026·1 hr 5 min·5 clips

David French reveals how a 1934 law lets the government own airwaves and control political talk shows.

Stephen Colbert's pulled interview is the opening hook. Steve Hayes brings Jonah Goldberg, David French, and Megan McArdle into a roundtable about the pulled James Tallarico interview. The FCC issue is institutional: equal-time rules, the Fairness Doctrine, and the recurring temptation to let Washington police media bias. Iran comes next. Hayes previews continued military escalation, possible U.S. strikes, and a later segment on returning to the moon. The ad copy is hard to miss. Pacific Legal Foundation, Dispatch membership, premium perks, and listener housekeeping surround the excerpt before the panel fully gets going. The strongest supplied stretch is economic. One speaker argues that Hayek, Thomas Sowell, and Milton Friedman objected to central economic planning itself, not just progressive versions of it. Dry, but pointed. The target is the idea that a different faction can micromanage markets if it claims better judgment. Marco Rubio is the example. His Washington Post case for industrial planning done right is treated as the same old error in a cleaner suit. The analogy carries weight. A Milton Friedman story about the FDA and a cat that barks turns reform talk into a question of what can actually work, not what sounds desirable. There is some qualification. The speaker allows that infrastructure can blur the line around industrial policy, while still pushing back against broad faith in managed outcomes. The excerpt stays argumentative, even when it gets barbed. The clown-show jab and the cat analogy press the planning critique instead of sitting there as decoration. The close goes back to housekeeping. Listeners are asked to rate, review, subscribe, email roundtable at thedispatch.com, and sit with one last wry nod to people who want federal media-bias policing.

As heard by us

A sharp Dispatch roundtable on Colbert, FCC rules, and the conservative case against government-managed fairness.

The Dispatch Podcast uses the Stephen Colbert controversy to reopen an old fight over broadcast rules, equal time, the Fairness Doctrine, and whether federal regulators can police media fairness without creating worse incentives.

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Why you'd press play

If broadcasting law feels distant from your life, a pulled Stephen Colbert interview is about to change that.

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