Trump suggests he isn't getting 'equal time' on television because 'unfunny' late-night hosts joke about him

(Image credit: Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)

last updated 7 October 2017

After expressing positive surprise over a Friday Washington Post story on his support among small-dollar campaign donors, President Trump complained on Twitter Saturday morning that late-night comedians like Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert make jokes at his expense:

Trump was apparently thinking of an FCC rule that broadcast (not cable) television and radio stations must give equal appearance time to competing, qualified candidates for public office during an election. As a writer for Fallon's Tonight Show quickly noted, the equal time rule does not apply to a sitting president who is not campaigning. It also does not apply to commentary by a third party, like a late-night host's monologue, but rather is limited to personal, unpaid appearances by candidates.

The president's tweets were likely inspired, as they often are, by a Fox & Friends segment that aired about an hour before the posts appeared, this one on late-night comics taking "a hard turn to the left."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.