Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai revealed Friday that the federal agency has received “a number of” complaints and is considering whether to fine Stephen Colbert for The Late Show host’s vulgar joke about President Donald Trump.
“I have had a chance to see the clip now and so, as we get complaints — and we’ve gotten a number of them — we are going to take the facts that we find and we are going to apply the law as it’s been set out by the Supreme Court and other courts and we’ll take the appropriate action,” Pai said during an interview on Philadelphia’s Talk Radio 1210 WPHT.
“Traditionally, the agency has to decide, if it does find a violation, what the appropriate remedy should be. A fine, of some sort, is typically what we do,” Pai added.
During Monday’s episode of The Late Show, Colbert said, “The only thing [Trump’s] mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.” The joke drew outrage from fans, who made the hashtag #FireColbert a trending topic on Twitter.
There were also calls to boycott Colbert’s advertisers and accusations that his Trump joke was homophobic.
Colbert did not address the firestorm surrounding his comments during Tuesday night’s episode, opting instead to continue to blast Trump and Putin.
By Wednesday, Colbert had decided to address the controversy surrounding his profanity-laced barrage of personal insults against the president.
The CBS host seemed to acknowledge that his choice of words may have been offensive to the LGBT community, but Colbert declined to offer an apology to Trump.
“So while I would do it again, I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be,” Colbert said. “I’m not going to repeat the phrase, but I just want to say for the record, life is short, and anyone who expresses their love for another person, in their own way, is to me, an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else. But, that.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson.
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