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The US in Brief: A clash between comedy and the FCC

2026-02-18 · 12:18 UTC ·The Economist ·8 min read

Brief

The Economist’s US in Brief newsletter for February 18th 2026 centers on a press-freedom dispute involving CBS, Stephen Colbert, and the FCC, framing it as part of a wider pattern of media firms navigating political and regulatory pressure under the second Trump administration. Anna Gomez, the FCC’s Democratic commissioner, rebuked CBS for allegedly shelving James Talarico’s interview out of concern over equal-airtime requirements, while chairman Brendan Carr has signaled a tougher interpretation of those rules for talk shows. The item is especially notable because Paramount is simultaneously entangled in multiple Washington-dependent transactions, having paid Trump $16m to settle a lawsuit, secured FCC approval for its Skydance merger, and pursued Warner Bros Discovery. Elsewhere, the newsletter flags Trump’s claim that Japan will deploy $36bn into initial US energy and manufacturing projects as part of a $550bn investment-for-tariff-cap arrangement, alongside personnel turmoil at the Pentagon and DHS, New York City budget pressure, and a housing affordability indicator showing the erosion of the single-earner household model.

Why it matters

The Economist’s February 18th 2026 US politics newsletter leads with an FCC-media dispute and then rounds up several administration, trade, and city-budget developments.

Key details

  • FCC commissioner Anna Gomez criticised CBS over not airing Stephen Colbert’s interview with Texas Democrat James Talarico, saying the broadcaster appeared to overreact to equal-time rules; FCC chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump ally, had recently argued talk shows could violate those rules, even though they were widely treated as exempt until January.
  • Paramount’s regulatory exposure is a subtext in the CBS story: it paid Donald Trump $16m in July to settle a lawsuit, then won FCC approval for a Paramount-Skydance merger, plans to cancel Colbert’s late-night show in May, and is now bidding for Warner Bros Discovery in a deal that would also need government approval.
  • Trump said Japan will invest $36bn in the first phase of a broader US-Japan trade deal, with funds earmarked for three energy and manufacturing projects including a natural-gas plant in Ohio; Japan’s broader commitment is $550bn in exchange for a 15% tariff cap on Japanese exports.
  • Pete Hegseth reportedly told Army secretary Dan Driscoll to fire Colonel Dave Butler, the Army spokesman and adviser to chief of staff Randy George, while DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said she will step down after defending the administration’s immigration operations and describing the job as a “war” on the media.
  • New York mayor Zohran Mamdani proposed a 9.5% property-tax increase and use of reserves to fund the fiscal year beginning in July, while the newsletter also notes that in 2024 fewer than one in three young married single-income couples had moved into a new home in the previous year.
Cleaned source text

title: The US in Brief: A clash between comedy and the FCC

author: The Economist

content_type: newsletter

publication: e.economist.com

published: 2026-02-18T06:18:59-06:00

source_url: gmail://19c70b08d4247196

word_count: 1801

Also: How do you solve a problem like ICE?

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February 18th 2026 For subscribers

The US in Brief

A sharp round-up of the most important political news

Image: Getty Images

You can listen to anarrated version of this newsletter each day.

Network television and the Federal Communications Commission are once again at the centre of a row over press freedom. Anna Gomez, the FCC’s commissioner, criticised CBS for refusing to air Stephen Colbert’s interview with James Talarico , an up-and-coming Democrat, because it feared falling foul of an FCC requirement that rival political candidates receive equal airtime. (CBS denies that it pulled the segment.) Ms Gomez, a Democrat herself, appears to take a different view from Brendan Carr, the FCC’s chairman, who is an ally of Donald Trump. He had criticised talk shows for violating the rule. Until January such shows were thought to be exempt.

CBS and Paramount, its parent company, have had a complex relationship with the second Trump administration. In July Paramount paid $16m to settle a lawsuit brought by Mr Trump. Shortly thereafter the FCC approved a merger between Paramount and Skydance, a media company. In May Paramount will take Mr Colbert’s late-night show off the air. Bari Weiss, a conservative pundit who recently became head of CBS News, postponed a “60 Minutes” segment on a Salvadorian prison that had received deportees from America. Paramount is bidding to take over Warner Bros Discovery, a movie-making giant, a transaction that would require regulatory approval.

Pete Hegseth reportedly ordered Dan Driscoll, the army’s secretary, to sack Colonel Dave Butler, the army’s spokesman, last week. Mr Hegseth’s reasons are unclear; the “war secretary” had allegedly blocked the spokesman’s promotion before. Colonel Butler was an adviser to Randy George, the army’s chief of staff, and to Mr Driscoll, with whom Mr Hegseth is said to have clashed.

Tricia McLaughlin , a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, will step down next week. Ms McLaughlin recently described her job—which involved defending the Trump administration’s controversial immigration-enforcement operations—as waging “war” on the media. Reacting to her departure, Democrats resumed calling for the resignation of Kristi Noem, the head of the DHS.

Mr Trump said Japan would invest $36bn in America in the first phase of the countries’ “massive trade deal”, which was agreed last year. The money will go to three energy and manufacturing projects, including a natural-gas plant in Ohio. Japan has pledged to invest $550bn in America in exchange for the Trump administration’s agreement to cap tariffs on Japanese exports at 15%.

Zohran Mamdani , New York's mayor, floated the idea of raising the city's property-tax rate by 9.5% and tapping its reserves to fund his proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins in July. He would prefer, he said, that the state take action by raising income taxes on the rich and increasing the corporate-tax rate. But Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, opposes those policies.

Police arrested an 18-year-old man who ran towards the Capitol with a loaded shotgun. He was wearing a “tactical” vest, according to the Capitol police chief. The man complied when officers ordered him to drop the weapon. His motive is unclear. Congress is not in session this week.

Restrain or abolish?

Photograph: Getty Images

Democrats face a quandary. They want to curb Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s excesses, which appal voters. But Mr Trump, and nearly every other Republican, ran on ending border chaos, so they don’t want to sound soft on illegal immigration. Read our story to find out how they hope to curb ICE without losing votes.

A view from elsewhere

Mr Trump’s claim that Cuba is “a threat to the United States’s security” reminds Julio César Sánchez Guerra of Humpty Dumpty’s claim that a word “means just what I choose it to mean”. Writing in _Victoria_ , a Cuban news outlet, he said, “we are not a threat to America.” Mr Trump is just “trying to kill an example of disobedience”.

Figure of the day

Less than one in three , the share of young married couples in 2024 who had moved into a new home in the previous year while living on a single income. Read our story about the decline of the single-earner household.

What our readers think

Karen Pirrello believes that the Department of Justice is “protecting the paedophiles not the victims”. She thinks it incredible that there are “6m pages of evidence, but not enough to indict anyone other than [Jeffrey] Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell”. Linda Gartz is shocked that “80% of the files have been redacted, yet the names of some of the victims were not.” She thinks that “it’s time to get someone else to look at all those redacted files”. And Harry James thinks that, despite these documents, there has never been “any real effort at investigation” of the crimes of Epstein and his associates.

We want to hear from you What do you think of the Environmental Protection Agency’s repeal of the “endangerment finding”, which said that six greenhouse-gases are a danger to humans? Are the promised $1.3trn in savings worth the environmental cost? Write to us at usib@economist.com and we will publish some of your views on Wednesday. And, of course, we welcome your feedback on this newsletter.

Editor’s picks

A selection of must-read articles

The Telegram

Donald Trump’s envoys failed to reassure Europe

A gathering of world leaders in Munich shows how trust has collapsed

Right off the money

Why MAGA brands have been a flop

Conservatives are better at trashing businesses than building them

Food for thoughtlessness

Americans are unleashing their anger on food-delivery robots

The machines don’t deserve it

Checks and Balance newsletter

Why 1873 still matters for America

Jon Fasman, our senior culture correspondent, examines how the backlash to Reconstruction echoes in today’s arguments over race and citizenship

Daily quiz

From Monday to Thursday we’ll quiz you on all things American. Since Monday was Presidents’ Day, this week’s questions are about times when presidents exemplified the qualities you would expect of a head of state.

Wednesday

What did the Pendleton Act, possibly the greatest achievement of Chester Arthur’s presidency, do?

Tuesday

Convinced he would lose the presidential election in 1864, Abraham Lincoln wrote a memorandum, and asked his entire cabinet to sign it without reading it. What did it commit them to?

To play this week’s quiz, email all your answers with your name and where you are from to usib@economist.com before 5pm New York time (10pm London time) on Thursday. The weekly winner, chosen at random from those who give all the right answers, will be announced on this page on Friday.

If you enjoy the US in Brief quiz, play Dateline, _The Economist_ ’s history game.

Seen at a press conference

I would rather eat glass than do that.

—Tim Walz, the retiring governor of Minnesota and former Democratic candidate for vice-president, has no interest in becoming a senator.

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