FCC won’t take action against Colbert over Trump joke

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) won’t take any action against late night host Stephen Colbert over a controversial joke about President Trump, the agency said Tuesday.

The agency earlier this month said they’d investigate after receiving complaints about a joke the “Late Show” host told that referring to Trump’s mouth as “Vladimir Putin’s c–k holster.”

“Consistent with standard operating procedure, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau has reviewed the complaints and the material that was the subject of these complaints. The Bureau has concluded that there was nothing actionable under the FCC’s rules,” the FCC said in a Tuesday statement, according to Variety.

{mosads}FCC Chairman Ajit Pai had said earlier in May that the bureau would investigate and take “appropriate action” against Colbert if the remark was deemed obscene. He said “a number” of complaints were filed about the joke.

The agency’s website states that content must meet all three requirements of a three-tier test set by the Supreme Court to be labeled “obscene.”

“It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a ‘patently offensive’ way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value,” it reads.

Colbert made the joke during a rant about an interview Trump had cut short with CBS.

“The only thing your mouth is good at is being [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s c–k holster,” he said of Trump.

Colbert defended his joke, saying it was a “fair fight” against the president, but that he “would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be.”