During his monthly press conference at the agency, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr elaborated on the agency’s “equal time” rule change, which could force daytime talk shows like The View and late night shows like The Tonight Show to think carefully before inviting on candidates for political office.

There has been an exemption for daytime talk shows and late night talk shows tracking back decades. In general, talk shows have qualified for the equal opportunities exemption as a bona fide news interview, ever since the FCC granted an exemption to Jay Leno’s Tonight Show in 1996. That is now changing, with the FCC expecting to be much more aggressive in responding to complaints from candidates that are not invited onto shows, be they from a major party, or a more obscure third party.

“Congress was clear that the FCC has a role with respect to bona fide news, because otherwise, I think the statutory history is clear,” Carr said during the press conference, which was streamed on YouTube. “They were worried that TV programmers would broadly take advantage of trying to claim they were bona fide news when they weren’t. But if you’re fake news, you’re not going to qualify for the bona fide news exception.”

Carr said that the change is spurred on by the Leno exemption, with the FCC focusing on broadcast TV programming. However, he was asked whether the same rules would apply to talk radio shows, which tend to skew more conservative.

“There wasn’t a relevant precedent that we saw that was being misconstrued on the radio side as that wasn’t part of anything in that decision. It was focused on the potential misreading of precedents on the broadcast TV side,” he said. “Of course, as you know, the rule applies to broadcast, radio and TV, but that one was focused on those TV precedents.”

In a press conference of her own, Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez reiterated that the rule change will necessarily have to apply to talk radio as well.

“We must keep in mind that the primary motivation for this action was to lend a hand to the political operation of this administration, not to help consumers,” she said. “And I also want to note what the administration is not focusing on, that these rules apply to all broadcasters, television and radio, and they must be applied evenly to the administration’s friends and critics alike.”

The FCC rule change caught the attention of late night hosts, with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel both weighing in on their respective shows. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared on Colbert’s show and The View this week, and while he is running for re-election, the campaign window has technically not started yet, so it won’t be a test case.

“I might need your help again,” Kimmel quipped. “This isn’t the ’50s anymore … Back then there were only three major networks. Now we’ve got cable, we’ve got streaming, we have satellite, podcasts, social media. There are thousands of outlets now. Broadcast TV used to account for 100 percent of viewing. Now, it’s like 20 percent. There are so many channels, some of them doing 24/7 Trump programming: Fox News, Newsmax, One America New, Real America’s Voice. None of them are required to give equal time, but we are because we use the public airways.”

Carr responded to Kimmel’s monologue in the press conference.

“This is one respect where I really agree with Jimmy Kimmel. Part of what he said was that this rule applies uniquely to broadcast, because it’s not cable, it’s not a podcast, it’s not other forms of distribution,” Carr said. “Some people have said that, because of the rise of cable channels and other distribution means that it doesn’t make sense anymore to have unique broadcast rules, and to that, I would say a couple things: One, that’s ultimately up for Congress to decide, it’s not for us to ignore the law. And two: I think it actually may cut the other way, which is to say, if you don’t want to comply with the public interest standard with your programming now, you have so many other ways of getting it out there, whether it’s a podcast, a cable channel, a streaming service, that if you want the unique privilege of distributing over this one type of thing, broadcast TV, then we should really make sure that you’re actually complying with the rules of that distribution mechanism.”

In her own presser Gomez lamented the rule change, telling reporter “as if there was any doubt, the last few weeks have shown that this FCC is no longer independent and it is no longer primarily interested in acting in the interest of consumers. The FCC is now a political arm of this administration.”

Gomez called the move “a misguided announcement meant to once again threaten late night and daytime shows who dare to report the news or speak out against this administration.”

“I have one clear message to the broadcasters that we oversee: Do not be cowed into stopping your independent reporting of what is happening to this country,” she added. “The guidance issued recently by the FCC was a threat, but it did not change much as far as what are your rights and obligations, it does not change your fundamental first amendment right to broadcast newsworthy content, but the threats are the point.”