FCC Chairman Brendan Carr continued to insist that his recent comments about Jimmy Kimmel were not a threat, even though they were widely seen that way by Democrats and some Republicans.
At his first FCC commission meeting since Kimmel’s late night show was pulled, and later reinstated, by ABC, Carr claimed that his remarks were being mischaracterized by Democrats and the media.
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“There was no threat made or suggested that if Jimmy Kimmel didn’t get fired, that someone was going to lose their license,” Carr told reporters on Tuesday. “I’ve seen that there’s a lot of Democrats that are writing letters saying that is what happened, ansd it simply didn’t.”
On his late-night show earlier this month, Kimmel, in his monologue, said, “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”
Two days later, Carr, appearing on Benny Johnson’s podcast, called Kimmel’s remark “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr said that his “easy way, or the hard way” comment was referring to news distortion complaints and that “there’s an easy way that these can be dealt with — either the TV stations and the national programmers can work it out … privately. Or there’s another qay, which is people can file news distortion complaints at the FCC, and that’s what happened, in which case we have to run an FCC process on that.”
But in other comments in the Benny Johnson interview, Carr did bring up the prospect of Kimmel being fired and the possible revocation of station licenses.
He said: “Look, there’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. You could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. Again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we can look at. We may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.”
He also said that “it’s time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, “Listen, we’re going to preempt, we’re not going to run Kimmel anymore, and so you straighten this out because we, licensed broadcasters are running into the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”
Hours after the podcast interview, Nexstar, the largest station group, announced that it was pulling Kimmel’s show for the foreseeable future. Soon after, ABC announced that it was dropping the program indefinitely. Another station group, Sinclair, also announced that it would not air Kimmel’s show.
But following a backlash, Disney-owned ABC reversed course, and reinstated Kimmel the following week. Several days later, Sinclair and Nexstar said that they would restore the show to their stations, while claiming that the decision to pull the show was not due to government pressure.
Nevertheless, Carr’s comments were seen as a threat by GOP figures including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Cruz compared Carr’s remark to a mafia boss, warning that it was “dangerous” in that Democrats may deploy similar tactics when they return to power.
Asked wether Cruz also was taking his comments out of context, Carr said, “I have no comment on that. Obviously you’re free to ask them about their views. What I’ve been clear about is that if you look ar the full context, not only what I said, but what the companies themselves have said about their decision. It was a business decision.”
Nexstar is seeking FCC approval of its merger with Tegna, and also has been one of the leading corporate advocates urging the agency to lift a national media ownership cap. Sinclair also wants the FCC to relax that rule.
The FCC meeting drew about a dozen demonstrators, several of whom interrupted the proceedings by shouting “Fire Carr the censorship czar!” They were escorted out by security. Members of the group also wore T-shirts with the FCC logo but the words “Federal Censorship Commission.” Outside, a truck sponsored by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders with the message, “The FCC’s policing of content is abuse of power.”
Carr, though, signaled that he would continue to scrutinize individual shows, including ABC’s The View, whose co-hosts have been at times scathing in their criticism of Donald Trump.
Carr has raised the prospect of reviewing whether the show still fell under the bona fide news exemption of the FCC’s equal opportunity rule. That requires that shows that feature political candidates provide rivals equal time upon request. Talk shows have traditionally fallen under the same exemption given to news and documentary programming.
“We should be refreshing and reinvigorating our approach across the board,” Carr said. “So there may come a time where it’s appropriate for the FCC to take a look at the bona fide news exemption, perhaps sunset any guidance that has been out there, for any program right, left, center. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the commission, said that what Carr has been doing is making threats over content, even though he lacks authority to do so.
“The threats are the point,” she said. “This administration wants capitulation before it gets to the courts, because they want the companies to alter their behavior now, and they don’t want to risk having it go to court.”
She noted that among the complaints that the FCC has yet to act upon is one brought by a conservative group over the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview with Kamala Harris. The complaint alleged a violation of the FCC’s news distortion policy. But companies can only be found liable only if it can be proven “that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report.” That’s a high standard, Gomez said.
CBS has challenged the complaint, but it also settled Trump’s lawsuit over the 60 Minutes interview for $16 million. Trump’s lawsuit was seen as a hurdle to overcome as Skydance sought government approval to merge with CBS’ parent, Paramount Global.
Companies, Gomez said, “are fraying our First Amendment and our democracy every time they capitulate, but I understand. They are businesses. They have obligations to their shareholders. So it’s also our obligation not to threaten and not to have these complaints hanging over people’s heads, and not to continue to threaten people with news distortion findings.”
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