Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr denied Wednesday that the government was censoring News “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert after the network banned him from airing an interview with a U.S. Senate candidate earlier this week.

“There was no censorship here,” Carr told reporters.

Instead of censure, Carr blamed Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) for committing a “hoax” related to News not airing his interview.

“You had a Democratic candidate who understood how the media works and took advantage of all your preconceptions to pull off a hoax, apparently to raise money and get clicks,” Carr said. “And the media directly influenced that.”

However, the “hoax” claim does not appear to be supported by facts: Colbert was the first to bring up the censure to his audience on Monday, not Talarico.

“The lawyers in our network, who called us directly, told us in very clear terms that we could not have [Talarico] on the broadcast,” Colbert said Monday.

“Then they told me, in uncertain terms, that not only could I not have it, but I couldn’t mention that I didn’t have it,” Colbert added. “And since my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

A split image shows Stephen Colbert, left, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, right.
A split image shows Stephen Colbert, left, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, right.

(Photo by John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images)/(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Colbert proceeded to explain that the FCC, under Carr, has threatened to require late-night television talk shows to give equal time to all political candidates in a race, and it appears that News decided to comply beforehand. (Notably, Trump’s FCC has not threatened to apply the same rule to right-wing talk radio.)

“Now, as I said, at this point, he just released a letter saying he’s thinking about eliminating the exception at night,” Colbert said. “He hasn’t removed it yet, but my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he has… but I want to assure you that this decision is due to purely financial reasons.”

Colbert accused News of bowing to the threats on Monday, saying the network told him not to interview Talarico on his show.

Colbert said News discouraged Talarico as a guest, apparently fearing that the FCC would impose an equal time rule that had not previously been used for late-night talk shows. Talarico is running against Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in the Democratic primary for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Instead, Talarico’s interview aired on the “Late Show” YouTube channel, where it quickly racked up millions of views. The campaign also said it raised $2.5 million within 24 hours of the interview airing.

At his press conference Wednesday, Carr claimed that Congress passed the equal time rule so that “the Hollywood and New York media elites” can’t “pick the winners and losers in the primaries.”

“There was a partisan candidate who broadcast this garbage to the major national media and you ran,” Carr said. “I was laughing, it was clear that this story was going to change at some point and the truth was going to come out.”