Stephen Colbert has found an ally in former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee following the “Late Show” host’s anti-Trump monologue that has caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission.
Huckabee asserted Saturday morning that Colbert should be protected by the First Amendment.
“Calls for FCC to punish Colbert are misguided-don’t let gov’t decide when speech is ok-let YOU decide by not viewing/buying,” he tweeted with the hashtag “#1stAmendment.”
Calls for FCC to punish Colbert are misguided-don’t let gov’t decide when speech is ok-let YOU decide by not viewing/buying. #1stAmendment
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 6, 2017
The FCC says it has received a number of complaints about a monologue from Colbert on his CBS show earlier this week when mocking Trump over abruptly ending a recent interview with CBS’s John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” when he was pressed on his unverified claims that President Obama wiretapped his office. After calling the episode “Disgrace the Nation,” Colbert went on to say that Trump’s “mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.”
Critics have said the joke was indecent and perhaps even homophobic, resulting in a trending social media boycott: #FireColbert. Colbert, though, he said he didn’t regret his “choice insults” directed at Trump, said if he were to do the monologue again he would “change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be.”
During an interview Thursday on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he had a chance to view the clip and has received “a number of” complaints about it. He said his independent agency will look into the matter.
After 10 p.m., (Colbert’s show starts at 11:35 p.m. ET), “obscene” language is prohibited on broadcast TV and radio. According to the FCC, obscene content, not protected by the first amendment, is subjected to a “three-pronged” test established by the Supreme Court: “It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a ‘patently offensive’ way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”
Huckabee himself has come under fire for a tweet he sent Friday, Cinco de Mayo, which made some Mexican-related jokes that some criticized as being stereotypical.
For Cinco de Mayo I will drink an entire jar of hot salsa and watch old Speedy Gonzales cartoons and speak Spanish all day. Happy CdMayo!
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 5, 2017
To his critics, Huckabee recommended that they stop following him and instead follow someone “sensitive and kind like Stephen Colbert.”
To humorless trolls who soiled themselves re: my earlier tweet-stop following me;follow someone sensitive and kind like Stephen Colbert
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) May 5, 2017
