Talarico’s Interview With Kimmel That ABC Wouldn’t Air Goes Viral Online, Racking Up Millions of Views
Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D) should consider writing a thank you note to ABC after a decision by network brass to exile a political interview to YouTube once again brought the candidate viral traffic.
Talarico, who is running for Texas’ U.S. Senate seat against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), was scheduled to sit down with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel this week. ABC controversially decided not to air the interview during the regular Jimmy Kimmel Live broadcast, after pressure from President Donald Trump’s FCC.
In February, Talarico was previously involved in a similar media kerfuffle, when his interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show was similarly relegated to YouTube at the urging of CBS lawyers who raised concerns about the new federal guidance from the FCC and Chairman Brendan Carr about the “equal time” rule regarding political candidates.
Colbert’s interview with Talarico was posted instead on YouTube, which is not subject to FCC regulation, and immediately went viral. According to a report by MS NOW, The Late Show typically averaged about 2.3 million views, but the Talarico clip racked up over 5 million views on YouTube in the immediate aftermath of being posted online, plus more on other social media platforms.
Talarico also benefited from a major name recognition boost at a critically helpful moment during his contested primary and brought in over $2.5 million in campaign donations. Currently, the video has nearly 10 million views just on YouTube alone.
The Democrat got a second round of online viral traffic this week from his interview with Kimmel.
Jimmy Kimmel Live has been getting strong ratings this past year. Variety reported in March that the show was drawing 1.9 million viewers per episode, and hit the highest-ever monthly ratings average in the show’s entire 23-year history in June, with 3.15 million viewers, according to LateNighter. That June spike was attributed to “highly rated lead-ins” from the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final, plus Colbert’s show being cancelled and thereby knocking a key competitor off that schedule slot.
The YouTube clip of Kimmel’s interview with Talarico has already surpassed that June record high for the linear television show. Friday morning, the video had about 2 million views; at the time of publication it was over 3.3 million and continuing to grow.
On Instagram, Kimmel’s show drew over 1.4 million views with the below post:
View this post on Instagram
Talarico’s campaign piled up additional impressive audience numbers for his Kimmel interview, posting numerous short clips on social media platforms. The top post from the show shared on Facebook has over 1.4 million views; several others have hundreds of thousands of views. Three clips shared to Instagram have about half a million views total, and those numbers are rolling upwards on the campaign’s TikTok account as well.
Talarico is giving Democrats one of the few gasps of hope they have seen in decades to win a statewide election in Texas. The scandal-plagued Paxton knocked the incumbent Cornyn out of the GOP primary, but that victory required a runoff, burned through campaign funds, and resulted in the warnings from Cornyn and his allies that Paxton would be a weaker candidate in the general election looking very prescient.
Talarico has been clobbering Paxton in fundraising and has maintained a small but steady lead in the polls, including winning back constituencies like Hispanics and younger voters where Trump made gains in 2024. Trump and Elon Musk are finally spending some of their PAC money to boost Paxton, but Cornyn and other major GOP donors — including some of Paxton’s biggest past benefactors — have declined to help their fellow Republican.
Watch the video above via Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube.
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