interview

‘NAZA’ review: Documentary collects anonymous testimony of IDF tactics

Using interviews filmed on rooftops at night in Tel Aviv, the documentary “NAZA” uncovers Israel’s brutal methodology of warfare in Gaza since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that took 250 hostages and killed at least 1,200 people. The testimony offered by these insiders is under the cloak of darkness, but the light it shines on the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is so harsh it burns the conscience. (The title refers to the Israel Defense Forces’ use of an acronym for the Hebrew term for collateral damage: nezek agavi.)

Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, half of the quartet (with Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal) behind the Oscar-winning “No Other Land,” secured one-on-one interviews with 24 Israeli intelligence personnel and soldiers, digitally altering their faces and voices while their silhouettes are framed by the lit cityscape. Sitting across from interviewer Abraham, they recount their participation in a military campaign that has killed over 73,000 in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and is ongoing. Used as an estimation of casualties — just put a number in front, “20 NAZA”— it suggests a battle calculation that has permitted the detachment of moral consquences.

One participant makes his need for anonymity clear: “Israel will put me in jail.” At the same time, there has been clamor for the exposure of these sources so they can be prosecuted for war crimes. The uproar over “NAZA” has also led the filmmakers to be called traitors in their country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to revoke their citizenship.

It all speaks to the power of a well-timed movie, since much of the reporting in “NAZA” has already been published by the Guardian, a co-producer of the documentary, and corroborated by other news outlets. After its theatrical run, the Guardian will stream “NAZA” for free on its website.

The picture painted from the interview subjects, who occasionally draw sketches of weapons-screen interfaces on notepads, is of a computerized tracking-and-killing apparatus, culled from the surveillance Israel keeps of nearly every phone in Gaza. The system is augmented by AI that isn’t always accurate about a target’s presence yet is implemented with airstrikes. Eavesdropping on children is used to track a targeted father’s arrival home in a program called “Where’s Daddy?” As one person says, “You hack her phone and then kill her.”

What’s chilling about these interviews is how they don’t feel like whistleblowing but rather a fact-finding inquiry with available explainers who betray little affect or remorse, even when the topic of personal doubt arises. When one is asked whether this is genocide, the answer comes back, “Yes.” “NAZA” eschews probing for guilty feelings, though, because the point is to unearth a process of obliteration: how it works and what it looks like as implemented by the willing. “My role is technical,” a subject says.

In between these interviews are glimpses of the occasional Israeli news media snippet and at one point an archival reminder of the circumstances of Tel Aviv’s founding. But most insistently, the interstitial visuals are cinematographer Szor’s night shots of apartment facades in modern Tel Aviv: citizens at rest with their loved ones, working out or eating in front of their televisions. It’s a casual surveilling of placidity just up the coast from the atrocities we hear about. “NAZA” isn’t just tough-to-hear journalism, it’s real filmmaking, the visual juxtapositions getting us to think about who doesn’t get to enjoy a quiet evening at home, especially when remote war-waging starts to look like a goal-oriented office shift with a lunch break — or a video game.

Wherever you fall regarding the continued destruction of Gaza, what the filmmakers of “NAZA” make disturbingly clear is that the simplest machinery to spread dehumanization and death is happening now, easing its users into acceptance and rewriting everything about the moral cost of conflict. It’s stone-cold frightening.

‘NAZA’

In Hebrew and English, with subtitles.

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes

Playing: Opens Friday, Oct. 9 in limited release

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Revolut’s CEO Says US Banks Are ‘Out of Step’ With Global Consumers | Global Finance Magazine Revolut US Bank Expansion: CEO Cetin Duransoy Interview

Home Banking Revolut’s CEO Says US Banks Are ‘Out of Step’ With Global Consumers

Revolut US CEO Cetin Duransoy reveals plans to target globally minded and “underbanked” Americans as it builds toward becoming a primary bank.

After receiving conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter, Revolut Technologies Inc. appears ready to launch a full-scale challenge to traditional banks and fintechs in the United States.

After relatively quick growth in France, Spain, and Italy, Revolut aims to bring its superapp model to the U.S., where it doesn’t exist in quite the same form.

Revolut’s U.S. CEO, Cetin Duransoy, who has held senior roles at Raisin, Fundbox, Visa, and Capital One, spoke with Global Finance about Revolut’s plans for the American market. 

Global Finance: In the US, banks, fintechs, brokerages, travel products and payment apps are mostly separate. Does that surprise you? Do you see a genuine hole in the U.S. market for a company that combines all those relationships in one place?

Duransoy: It’s not surprising, given how complex these products are and how crowded and fragmented the U.S. market is. Layer on the regulatory process, and combining all these product suites—banking, brokerage, FX, crypto, travel, and more—into a single company or app becomes genuinely difficult and, for most companies, not worth the effort.

We believe you need a genuinely differentiated product to succeed in this market, and we have identified an opportunity here. By bringing all these products into one platform, we can remove the friction customers typically experience when cobbling together services from multiple providers.

GF: People often say, “The U.S. banking market is different.” Different how, exactly? And how might those differences affect Revolut?

Duransoy: The US’s fragmented, charter-based regulation can be more cumbersome than the EU’s passporting model, and U.S. customers tend to rely more on credit than their European counterparts. But the U.S. provides certain advantages, including the U.S. card network and interchange system, which subsidize rewards; FDIC insurance; and consumer-protection laws, which create a trust threshold.

Our broad product offering, 80-million-user global network, and strong global brand allow U.S. to cater to the distinct challenges of the U.S. market and understand the challenges of U.S. distribution costs. By obtaining a national bank charter, we will be on par with traditional banks, with direct Fedwire/ACH access and lending capability.

GF: When Revolut enters the U.S. market more aggressively, should Americans expect something close to the European Revolut experience—or will the U.S. product necessarily look much more like a traditional American bank competing on deposits, credit cards and lending?

Duransoy: We are always focused on product-market fit for our customers, and the U.S. will be no different. We’ve publicly shared that we will bring the best of what Revolut offers and provide the products U.S. customers want most, including checking accounts, credit cards, installment loans, FX, and stablecoins. We’ll continue innovating to deliver a distinct, more productive experience for U.S. customers.

GF: One of the things that makes Revolut unusual in Europe is that it sits at the intersection of finance, travel and lifestyle. Is that model central to how you think about the US, or is America more of a banking opportunity?

Duransoy: Yes. Combining our lifestyle products with the financial services that have made Revolut so popular remains central to our thinking. And they’re a key differentiator in many of our markets. We expect these offerings to help make us a top-of-wallet card and strengthen customer retention.

GF: Why should someone with Chase, Amex, Venmo, Robinhood, and a good travel card move meaningful parts of their financial life to Revolut? What can you offer that those companies, individually or collectively, do not?

Duransoy: We recognize that inertia is a strong force when it comes to financial services and that a customer’s bank holds critical parts of their financial life, such as their mortgage or direct deposit.

What we offer is the ability to consolidate multiple products and services into a single interface and remove the friction our customers find frustrating with other services. Revolut’s broad-based platform allows customers to seamlessly access multi-currency spending without foreign transaction fees, instant global P2P, a combined debit/credit product, budgeting, digital assets, and investing, all without transferring funds between platforms or managing multiple accounts. That’s especially valuable for people who travel internationally, have cross-border family ties, or are underserved by traditional credit underwriting.

GF: Which types of lending will Revolut prioritize in the US?

Duransoy: We intend to initially prioritize unsecured and secured credit cards and installment loans.

GF: What does Revolut understand about the consumer relationship that you think many American banks and fintechs still lack?

Duransoy: We treat our global app as the product. We iterate quickly, aim for gamified engagement, and offer frequent feature releases, in contrast to most U.S. bank apps, which have slower release cycles.

We also build for financial lives that span borders and currencies, rather than assuming a single-currency, single-country customer. American banks were largely built for a domestic customer, and that assumption is increasingly out of step with a more mobile, globally connected population.

GF: Do you think Revolut is underestimated in the US? If so, why? Among those who are aware, what do people in the U.S. most commonly misunderstand about Revolut right now?

Duransoy: “Underestimated” is probably right now, largely because our independent U.S. bank doesn’t exist yet. So we’re still seen as a “European neobank” by most Americans. That undersells what we’ll be once we have a full national charter, FDIC insurance, and our full lending capabilities live.

The most common misunderstanding among those who do know the brand is that we’re simply a fintech or a travel debit card, rather than a company with an 80-million-user global base—including 1.4M in the US—and banking licenses now spanning the UK, France, Australia, Mexico, and more.

GF: Are you coming to the U.S. to compete for a small slice of the market, or do you ultimately believe Revolut can change what Americans expect from a bank?

Duransoy: In the US, our near-term goal is to compete for market share. No new entrant can reshape what an entire country expects from a bank on day one. That takes years of trust-building, especially post-charter, when FDIC insurance and regulatory scrutiny are new territory for us.

What we’re looking to do is win the demographics best suited to us, namely the internationally minded, underbanked-by-incumbents, and digitally native users.

GF: On the corporate side, what are Revolut’s corporate banking plans?

Duransoy: Revolut Business exists—and is a core focus for us—in the U.S. We expect this to continue and are excited to launch merchant acquiring within the first years of becoming a bank.

GF: If we revisit this in three years, what would need to be true for you to say that Revolut has successfully become a major U.S. bank?

Duransoy: Within three years, we expect to be a fully operating bank with real momentum. We won’t share specific customer or product numbers today, but we’re building for scale and a sizable U.S. customer base that treats us as their primary bank, not a secondary account. That’s the bar we’re setting for ourselves.

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Sean Gunn retires from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Rocket raccoon role

Sean Gunn has no plans to continue his motion capture role for “Guardians of the Galaxy” character Rocket raccoon.

The physical demands involved in creating Marvel Cinematic Universe’s masked bandit often included the 52-year-old actor being in a catcher’s crouch position, which hurt his ankles and feet due to constant pivoting, Gunn revealed in an interview on “The Brandon Davis Show.”

“I think it had a little bit of an effect on my physiology. My knees are fine, but since I turned 50 a couple years ago, I am retired from playing Rocket,” Gunn said in the podcast episode published Monday. “I don’t think I can do the motion reference anymore for Rocket. I think I’m too old.”

The veteran actor is now ready to pass on his deadly laser cannon to another rising star. Rocket’s creators should “give a younger actor a shot at it, right?” he said.

While actor Bradley Cooper has voiced the small, sharp-tongued creature since the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” film in 2014, Gunn has worked alongside animators behind the scenes to capture the subtle actions with motion capture technology, or mocap, which animates 2D or 3D computer characters using the actor’s physical movements.

Gunn described the process as a relay race in a 2024 interview with Adam Lupis; once a script is handed to him, he passes the baton to the visual effects team, who then tie it all together with Cooper’s voice acting.

“Rocket is sort of a character by committee in that way. I think he’s a good microcosm for movies where they get this whole community of people coming to make something with love and care,” Gunn shared in the interview with Lupis. “It’s been a crazy process.”

Alongside his role as on-set Rocket, Gunn also portrayed Ravager Clan space pirate Kraglin Obfonteri in “Guardians of the Galaxy”; its two sequels, “Vol. 2” and “Vol. 3”; “Avengers: Endgame”; and “Thor: Love and Thunder.” Rocket also appeared in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War.”

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Interview: Mexican rockers the Warning hit No. 1, defy expectations

Growing up, Alejandra Villarreal was accustomed to the dry Mexican heat, trapped inside the small historic venues where she and her sisters would perform as kids. But as temperatures hit 103 degrees outside the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, she couldn’t help but shout.

“¡Ay, qué calor!” she said, swinging her bass guitar.

Inside the nearly 100-year-old theater, Alejandra was onstage for a sound check. She ran through distorted, metal-influenced riffs as her sisters — drummer Paulina Villarreal and lead vocalist-guitarist Daniela Villarreal — prepared for the second of three sold-out shows at the Fonda, as the rapidly rising rock band the Warning.

The Warning has been shaking the walls of L.A. theaters since the group first landed in the city eight years ago — but this year feels especially monumental for the sisters.

Released in August, the band’s most recent album, “Everything’s Falling,” is a snarling, noisy and melodic rock joyride that rarely, if ever, slows down.

Written between L.A. and their hometown of Monterrey, the straight-to-the point lyricism documents the Villarreal sisters’ frustrations, anger and failures — most fiercely on “Kerosene,” which lambasts a jealous critic who “falls asleep with me on your screen,” so sings Daniela.

“Kerosene” recently shot up to the No.1 spot on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, which made the Warning the first Mexican and first all-female band to make the spot. Another single, their Spanish-language anthem “Ego,” was nominated for rock song at the 2026 Latin Grammys.

Rock band, The Warning, members Alejandra Villarreal, left, Paulina Villarreal, center, and Daniela Villarreal, right.

Members of the Warning hold up Billboard No. 1 awards after performing at the Fonda Theatre.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The legend of the Warning began in 2014, when Alejandra was just 9 years old and Paulina and Daniela were 12 and 14, respectively. The sisters came home from a Sunday carne asada with their family — and recorded a righteous cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

Dressed in floral blouses and white capris, the girls thundered through the song with a focus and technical ability that sparked the interest of audiences worldwide — earning them a current total of 27 million views, not to mention praise from Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett.

“We were wearing our sandalias, our church clothes,” Paulina said. “It’s just pretty crazy to think that one random Sunday afternoon we recorded that and it jump-started our whole career.”

The idea for the group came from playing the video game “Rock Band,” which led the sisters to performing at local “Battle of the Bands” competitions and posting cover songs to YouTube.

But the success of the “Enter Sandman” cover changed the course of their lives, taking them from local venues like Cafe Iguana — or, as Paulina calls it, “Monterrey’s Whisky a Go Go” — to appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and various international music festivals.

“We started having adult responsibilities way early in our lives,” Paulina said. “We didn’t have that [average] teenage experience at all.”

“We didn’t go to normal school, we didn’t go and hang out with other teenagers,” she continued. “We were mostly hanging out with adults like our parents, [or] on tour and working. So there was this huge disparity between what our friends were living through and what we were going through.”

Over the course of its 13-year career, the Warning has opened for acts ranging from the Foo Fighters to Yungblud, writing and recording tirelessly in between. Now that the bandmates are all in their 20s, they say they “wouldn’t change it for anything.”

“When I was 10, I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life,’” Alejandra said. “I guess I did miss out on high school and ‘the norm.’ But honestly, I’m very grateful that we did this.”

In “Everything’s Falling,” the Warning contends with self-imposed songwriting limits that boxed them in as children — and tear down old personas to reveal their continuous, however imperfect, process of growth.

“All of our lives, we felt like we needed to sound a certain way,” said Alejandra. “English is not our first language, so we always found ourselves using really complex words — so that people would say, ‘They know the language.’ The lyrics of this album are very straightforward. We don’t have anything to prove anymore. It was a very liberating album to make.”

The group’s highly technical progressive rock style, influenced early on by bands like Muse, Metallica and Paramore, brought it a legion of Gen X fans who admired the sisters’ dedication to shredding, mathematical guitar solos and classical training base.

On their latest album, the sisters introduce new levels of fuzz and overdrive that blur their usually crisp instrumentals, plus verses that “lean into femininity” and take inspiration from a source that may surprise some: K-pop.

The rising global genre, known for its catchy harmonies and bouncing performance style, inspired the sisters to bring pop elements to their recording sessions.

“We love getting inspired outside of our genre,” Paulina said. “I think what happens a lot in rock is that, it’s very purista [purist]. Especially as women, whatever you do is very scrutinized. So if you ever step out of those confines it’s like, ‘Well [if] you’re not rock, you shouldn’t even be participating.’”

The sisters’ desire to defy expectations is most apparent in their jam-packed touring schedule.

Los Angeles, CA - September 10, 2026: Daniela Villarreal of the rock band, The Warning.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“I fainted onstage [in July], and it was very dramatic,” recalled Paulina. “More than it being scary, I think people for the first time realized how hard we work. People were like, ‘Oh, your team is pushing you too hard.’”

“Nobody’s forcing us to be here,” she added, resolutely. “We’re grown women. We know what we’re doing and we know how much we can take.”

Daniela, the lead vocalist, had come down with a cold during the group’s L.A. shows, which required her to step back from interviews to rest her voice. The first night, she sang through the entire setlist, screaming and all — but by the third, she could only perform a few songs. Rather than cancel the concert, the Warning insisted that the show go on.

A la Karen Carpenter, Paulina sang lead vocals from behind the drum kit, calling on the crowd to clap and sing along to the music. They also brought out fans and collaborators to help them perform, including songwriter Annie Schindel, as well as rock acts Holy Wars and Dead Poet Society.

“We push forward through a lot of bad experiences,” Alejandra said. “One time I felt like I was dying — and that was the one of the few times we canceled a show. We only do it in extreme measures, because we know how much planning a show takes.”

One could blame it on the “Mexican work ethic,” they said.

Before taking on Hollywood, the sisters joined regional Mexican artist Carín León on the first night of his sold-out weekend at the Sphere in Las Vegas: the first time a Latin artist had ever headlined the venue. The band released the bluesy rock single “Love to be Loved” earlier this year with the Sonora native, recalling the first time they played it together “a highlight of our lives.”

“[Even if] we do our own thing in a different genre, we still shared that pride because of where we come from,” Paulina said. “Everything about that show was so Mexican … The unity, the community that we have outside of our country. Hopefully the people that went there felt how special it was.”

“I cried,” Alejandra added. “[Watching Carín perform], it was emotional.”

The Warning, members Alejandra Villarreal, left, Paulina Villarreal, center, and Daniela Villarreal, right, perform.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

A week later, at the Fonda, they smiled as fans launched into chants like “Olé, Olé, Olé” and “Viva Mexico.” The line had been forming since 3 p.m., and once the show had begun, the Warning transformed from jovial 20-somethings to well-seasoned professionals.

“I feel like there will be a very clear change in what we do, ‘Everything’s Falling’-forward,” Paulina said. “I feel like we really allowed ourselves to be more emotional in the music and these shows, and that feels really powerful.”

Said Alejandra: “We opened Pandora’s box.”

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Presley Gerber, son of model Cindy Crawford, dies at age 27

Presley Gerber, the son of supermodel Cindy Crawford and her husband, businessman Rande Gerber, died Sunday at a rehab facility at age 27, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

Few details were available late Sunday.

Gerber worked as a model, including in 2018, at age 18, as the face of Calvin Klein Jeans’ global advertising campaign, along with his sister, Kaia Gerber.

A year later, he was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, according to USA Today. He was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to complete a DUI program, TMZ reported.

Kaia, left, and Presley Gerber in Paris in 2017.

Kaia, left, and Presley Gerber in Paris in 2017.

(Kamil Zihnioglu / Associated Press)

The death was confirmed to the Associated Press by Allie Jenkins, a representative for Crawford and Rande Gerber, who were married in 1998.

“The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time,” Jenkins said.

In an Aug. 11 interview with Vogue, sister Kaia, a model and actor, spoke of her older brother struggling with drug addiction, which he described in a since-deleted Instagram video in December.

She told the magazine that she was proud of him.

“My parents … were very, very private,” she said. “Now we have this absolute teacher, my brother, who said, ‘I’m gonna be very human for everyone.’”

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Newsom says he won’t run for president if Harris does

Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would not run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 if Kamala Harris does so, appearing to offer deference to the former vice president ahead of a race that could draw a historically crowded field of candidates.

“I wouldn’t run if she ran,” Newsom told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview posted Monday. “Why would I? I wouldn’t do that to her. … I wouldn’t do it to you, I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time.”

Newsom appeared to acknowledge a desire to avoid the possibly messy fight for California backers that could ensue if both were to run, saying there would be “pure crossover” between Harris’ supporters and his.

The governor’s effective yield to Harris diminishes the possibility of a showdown between two of California’s most powerful political figures in an election whose stakes are viewed by the Democratic Party as existential. The possibility of Harris making a second attempt at the presidency after her loss to President Trump in 2024 has hung as the biggest question over the potential Democratic field.

Both Newsom and Harris have acknowledged they are considering presidential bids in 2028, but Harris has closely held her intentions. She said last week that she had not decided whether to run, telling former soccer player Megan Rapinoe in a podcast interview that she was focused on working full time to help Democrats win the midterms.

A spokesperson for Harris declined to comment. Representatives for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request Monday afternoon.

Harris has appeared as the party front-runner in multiple polls about 2028, including one in July that showed her beating Newsom by double digits. But questions have continually circulated within the party about whether voters who are scarred from the party’s 2024 loss would be enthusiastic about a Harris run.

Several California donors told The Times in May that they did not plan to support Harris or did not want to discuss a possible bid by her; in a few corners, more enthusiasm came through for Newsom.

The dynamics around the 2028 Democratic primary continue to evolve as party hopefuls jockey for the spotlight, and they shifted notably with the selection of South Carolina as the party’s first primary state. That choice could give Harris a boost if South Carolina’s Black voters move in her favor.

Harris and Newsom came up in politics in the same era and have never before run in an election against each other, operating their political careers largely in parallel rather than in competition. In February, Newsom said on CNN that he had “never gotten in the way of her ambition” and he didn’t “imagine I would in the future,” saying “fate” would determine whether they ran against each other.

Newsom swung through South Carolina this month, the type of move generally interpreted as laying the groundwork for a presidential bid. In the CNN interview, Newsom noted that he did not know whether Harris would run and agreed it was a “pretty good case” to make when Tapper raised the argument that Harris had had her chance at the presidency and Newsom had not yet.

The governor suggested that a fight between him and Harris would split their supporters’ vote in a way that would be “a gift from God for everybody else” in the race, saying “it services no greater good” for both of them to run. He also nodded to their overlapping political circles.

“I know her base of supporters, I know her friends. The [Venn] diagram on that is just pure crossover,” Newsom said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

The interview was filmed in Montana, where Newsom’s in-laws own a ranch, as Newsom and Tapper fly-fished together. The full segment was set to air Tuesday.

Newsom said that in order to decide to run, a candidate needs to be able to “meet the moment.”

“You gotta be honest with yourself,” he said. “Do you represent the zeitgeist of the moment or are you wasting everybody’s time?”

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Jimmy Kimmel and the interview ‘the FCC doesn’t want you to see’

The video is titled “Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview With James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You to See.”

It was posted Thursday night on the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s” YouTube page. By 10 a.m. Friday, the video had gained more than 2.7 million views — and the interview hadn’t aired on the show’s network, ABC.

“… We are being targeted by the FCC for the crime of interviewing political candidates,” Kimmel says in the YouTube clip. “Even though for years we, and every other late-night talk show, have welcomed numerous candidates, including Donald Trump when he was running. He was on this show two times. [Trump’s] FCC has threatened me, threatened our show, threatened our network, ABC, our affiliates, our local stations, because they want to make our editorial decisions for us, which of course, we cannot accept.”

The host continued: “Tonight we are bypassing the public airwaves and hosting this interview on YouTube, even though our government would clearly prefer we not do it at all.”

The late-night host moved his interview with the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas online to sidestep new Federal Communications Commission policy regulations.

Kimmel said earlier in the week that the FCC had “threatened” his show.

“For the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem,” Kimmel said during Wednesday’s ABC broadcast. “Something has changed,” he said.

The change Kimmel was referring to involves the Communications Act’s “equal opportunities” requirement. It states that if a broadcast station features a qualified political candidate, it must provide equal airtime to an opposing candidate. Daytime and late-night talk shows have long operated under a “bona fide news program” exemption that shielded them from the equal time rule.

But under new guidance from the FCC Media Bureau, which is overseen by Donald Trump appointee Brendan Carr, talk shows may no longer qualify for the news exemption if their candidate interviews are determined to be motivated by partisan purposes.

In short, political bias is in the eye of the FCC beholder, and it has been focused on shows like “Kimmel Live!” and “The View,” which voice criticism of the president. The FCC has ordered early license reviews for several Disney-owned ABC stations. ABC has accused the Trump administration of trying to chill free speech.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who is the commission’s only Democrat, said Thursday in a statement that Kimmel’s choice to move Talarico’s interview to YouTube “shows just how far this Administration’s campaign of censorship and control has gone.”

The YouTube summary of the Kimmel/Talarico interview reads as follows: “Jimmy’s interview with Democratic Senate candidate from Texas James Talarico was not televised because of threats from the FCC so we’re hosting their discussion here on YouTube. James talks about Republicans being scared of him winning, Jesus being co-opted by MAGA, the RNC Convention being held in Texas, not taking money from corporate PACs, Trump calling him a ‘freaky guy’ and having second thoughts about endorsing his opponent Ken Paxton, and the GOP making it harder for people to vote.”

Assistant White House Press Secretary Davis Ingle accused Kimmel of “play acting” and “creating a false narrative about this administration’s policies,” in a statement Thursday. “Chairman Carr has not threatened him regarding interviewing James Talarico, or any other candidate,” Ingle said. “Any media outlet blindly amplifying Kimmel’s egocentric delusion should insist on proof. Of which they will find none.”

Unless they spend 10 seconds on Google, where there’s ample proof.

During a February taping of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Colbert told his studio audience that CBS lawyers had prohibited him from broadcasting an interview with Talarico, or even mentioning the cancellation on television, following threats from the FCC.

“[Talarico] was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said.

CBS denied they stopped “The Late Show” from airing the interview, which was instead posted on the show’s YouTube page.

Within months, “The Late Show” was canceled after 33 years on the air. Its final broadcast was May 21.

During Kimmel’s interview with Talarico, the host pointed out that it wasn’t the first time an interview with Talarico had been “demoted” from network television to YouTube. He asked his guest, “Why are they so scared of you?”

“They’re worried that we’re going to win this race in Texas,” Talarico said about running against Republican Ken Paxton.

The race will be decided in November.

“We’re not just going up against the most corrupt politician in Texas,” Talarico said. “We’re going up against this entire corrupt system.”

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Elon threatens to sue over new ‘Musk’ doc. But festival crowd loves it

The biggest news to come out of two film festivals this week stemmed from documentaries about tech moguls gone bad.

When Alex Gibney’s film production “Musk” premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, it received a five-minute standing ovation, shouts of “thank you” from the audience and endless play across social media. The nearly four-hour production chronicles the rise of the world’s first trillionaire out of the dot-com boom, and lays bare the dangers that the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive now presents as a plutocrat with questionable judgment and unchecked power.

Closer to home, at the Telluride Film Festival, it was comedian Nathan Fielder (“The Rehearsal”) and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything” that made breaking news. Their film features unfettered access to former Theranos Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes in the weeks before she reported to federal prison to serve a sentence of 10 years and three months. She rode the early 2000s wave of venture-capitalism consumer-tech hype, defrauding investors and the public with a bogus new way to test blood. By 2014, she was the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

A couple of decades ago, films about Musk and Holmes probably would have framed the pair as forward-thinking entrepreneurs and architects of a new era. Today, the pitchforks are out, and who else better represents the hubris and greed of late-stage capitalism?

There’s plenty of buzz around both films ahead of their October releases, yet the richest man in the world is helping promote the “Musk” doc by incessantly posting about Gibney and his “hit” piece.

Musk’s X posts have referred to the filmmaker as a “horrible human” and a “bitter old man” and declared, “Dogs— is worth more respect.” Always looking for a conspiracy to explain away the perfectly explainable, he wrote that the film was a “psy op.” He included in the post an image of Gibney as a puppet of the Democratic Party and George Soros. Musk also offered Trumpian prose: “Gutless Gibney’s fatal flaw of fabricating a false film.”

“Musk” is due for a theatrical release in the U.S. on Oct. 16 followed by a streaming launch on HBO Max.

Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro is threatening a lawsuit. He sent a letter to the Gibney-led Jigsaw Productions accusing the filmmaker of misrepresenting facts about the mogul. Spiro says the filmmaker suggested that Musk used his Starlink satellites to bend the 2024 election in favor of his friend and ally Donald Trump.

“You are … on notice, before release, that the insinuation is false, that the material refuting it is public, and that you chose not to be told the rest,” Spiro wrote. Spiro claimed he contacted the production “multiple times” and “requested an opportunity to present the facts in the normal fact-checking process that is the hallmark of ethical journalism. You have refused to engage.”

Gibney says Musk declined to be interviewed for the film. In his absence, the documentarian created a digital avatar of the Tesla CEO and used statements pulled from decades worth of the entrepreneur’s interviews and public appearances. The film chronicles his childhood in South Africa and his time in Silicon Valley, and suggests that Musk’s genius is not as an inventor but as an investor. His talent, the film contends, is stock-pumping.

“Musk” also reportedly explores how the trillionaire had access to sensitive techno-surveillance data when he ran the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Trump in 2025. Geoffrey Hinton , often referred to as the Godfather of AI, is interviewed in the film and explains why Musk’s potential access to the data is such a problem: “It’s fairly clear to me that Trump is hell-bent on corrupting the midterm elections,” Hinton says. “If you wanted to corrupt those midterm elections and you wanted to use AI, all you needed to do was get detailed information on U.S. citizens. And what DOGE did looked like just what you would do.”

Gibney in interviews about the film has warned that Musk’s widespread, unchecked power is “extremely dangerous to world democracy.”

“What I discovered was that the story of Musk was not [a] new tech story,” Gibney said in a news conference at the Venice Film Fest. “[It’s] really the story of an old wine in a new bottle. His story turns out to be the story of the confidence man, the stock pumper, his wealth and power comes from inflated stock, and so I had told that story before with Enron and with Elizabeth Holmes, and so it was a story that was oddly familiar to me.”

Gibney is renowned for taking on big money, corruption and anything else that reeks of injustice. He’s tackled Wall Street, big pharma, Scientology, Guantanamo, and even Theranos founder Holmes.

The new film about Holmes, “You Can See Everything,” offers a quirkier, up-close take on Holmes. Produced by A24 and set for an Oct. 16 theater release, it follows the disgraced CEO post-conviction, and she appears more than comfortable in front of the filmmakers and their cameras. Audiences at Telluride were surprised by the access she gave to the filmmakers, and that Holmes spoke openly about her plans to launch a biotech comeback and revive Theranos from her cell in a Texas prison camp.

Forget the celebrity glitz of high-profile film festivals. In these eat-the-rich times, it’s the dark side of wealth, fame and alleged genius that satiate audience appetites. Enter two new documentaries that feed the beast.

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