The Verge
Clustered Story
The speech police came for Colbert
The Verge · Feb 19, 2026 · Collected from RSS
Summary
Generally speaking, arcane and mostly unenforced FCC rules are not the province of late night talk shows. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr seems intent on changing that, though; not long after causing a ruckus that briefly took Jimmy Kimmel off the air, his vague threats appear to have been enough to convince CBS to tell Stephen Colbert not to air an interview. Which, of course, became a whole thing. Verge subscribers, don't forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Vergecast wherever you get your podcasts. Head here. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here. On this episode of The Vergecast (which we recorded and published a day early bot … Read the full story at The Verge.
Full Article
Skip to main contentOn The Vergecast: the FCC’s chilling effect, Apple’s AI gadgets, and Tesla’s robotaxi record.On The Vergecast: the FCC’s chilling effect, Apple’s AI gadgets, and Tesla’s robotaxi record.by David PierceFeb 19, 2026, 3:08 PM UTCDavid Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.Generally speaking, arcane and mostly unenforced FCC rules are not the province of late night talk shows. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr seems intent on changing that, though; not long after causing a ruckus that briefly took Jimmy Kimmel off the air, his vague threats appear to have been enough to convince CBS to tell Stephen Colbert not to air an interview. Which, of course, became a whole thing.Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Vergecast wherever you get your podcasts. Head here. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here.On this episode of The Vergecast (which we recorded and published a day early both because of the news and because Nilay has a vacation to go on), David and Nilay open the show with an extra-large installment of Brendan Carr is a Dummy. We talk through the timeline of the Colbert / CBS back-and-forth, once again attempt to explain how the equal time rule actually works, and wonder exactly how far Carr’s chilling effect will be allowed to go.After that, we turn to some gadgets. Nilay has always wanted exactly the facial-recognition feature Meta appears to be getting ready to launch for its smart glasses, but we’re not sure it should exist. And it appears Meta knows that. Apple is also gearing up for potentially a series of launches in early March, which could include new iPads, new Macs, and more. It almost certainly won’t include any of the AI gadgets Apple is reportedly working on, but we talk about those anyway.Finally, in the lightning round, we discuss Tesla’s rough self-driving record, Samsung’s next phones, an astonishing robovac security problem, and more.If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first in FCC news:And in gadgets:And in the lightning round:Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.David PierceThe Verge DailyA free daily digest of the news that matters most.Email (required)
Share this story