Lawrence O'Donnell's first guest on Tuesday night's The Last Word on MS NOW was Texas State Rep James Talarico, who was abruptly pulled from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the night before.
O'Donnell gave a summary of what had happened and played a clip of Colbert defying CBS's attorneys by talking about it after they told him not to say anything. And then O'Donnell lit them up.
O'Donnell said that it took CBS lawyers a full 24 hours to make a statement about what Colbert said on his show. The network's lawyers issued a mealy-mouthed statement saying the network wasn't prohibited from airing the interview with Talarico. Still, they warned that it could trigger the FCC rule requiring equal airtime for other candidates, including U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett. So, instead of giving Crockett equal airtime, they decided to post the interview on YouTube.
O'Donnell continued, "The CBS lawyers are factually and legally wrong, as anyone who knows the law should know. It would be impossible for James Talarico, his appearance, or any politician's appearance on Stephen Colbert's show to trigger the FCC equal time rule. The rule does not apply to entertainment television like Stephen Colbert's show in any way."
"FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez issued a statement instructing the CBS lawyers on the law, saying CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs, which makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing." O'Donnell continued, "The FCC is powerless to impose restrictions on protected speech, and any attempt to intimidate broadcasters into self-censorship undermines both press freedom and public trust.
"Remember, this is about the CBS lawyers; they are the weakest, most cowardly corporate lawyers in America. They are actually in a tie with ABC's lawyers, who we will get to in a moment. The CBS lawyers who are now trying to tell Stephen Colbert, who can be a guest on his show, work for a parent company that agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit by Donald Trump against 60 Minutes, which Donald Trump had no chance of winning. Absolutely zero chance of winning. But those cowardly corporate lawyers agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million in what Stephen Colbert correctly called, quote, a big, fat bribe."
O'Donnell was just warming up. He also went on to say how the CBS lawyers should be called as witnesses in the impeachment of Trump for bribery.
O'Donnell also tore into the lawyers at ABC and Disney for caving in and giving Trump another bribe instead of defending their employer in a lawsuit that Trump had no chance of winning.
O'Donnell ended his tirade with this heavy hit:
America has three legacy networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. They are our oldest networks, and two of them have handed over big, fat bribes to Donald Trump with the approval of the most cowardly corporate lawyers known to be currently working in America. Not one of those lawyers offered a principled resignation over the big fat bribe. Not one of them. We have seen lawyers publicly resigning from the trump justice department on principle, from Washington to Minneapolis, but not one CBS lawyer, not one ABC lawyer.
While the lawyers are definitely part of the problem, the much larger issue is the greedy executives, like Bari Weiss, who are willing to capitulate to Trump's strong-arm tactics in return for favors.
