Brendan Carr does not regret his threats to broadcasters

A defiant Brendan Carr testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday in his first public appearance before lawmakers since threatening broadcasters who aired comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show.

Over the course of nearly three hours, the FCC chairman moved between heated exchanges with Democrats and largely muted questions from Republicans. But at least some members of both parties expressed concern about organizers’ misrepresentation of the First Amendment — though there was no indication it would have much of an impact on Carr.

Comments Carr made in September in the wake of the public killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk took center stage. after Kimmel made a joke on his late night show About the political ideology of the killer Carr The interviewer said Penny Johnson, this was “some of the worst possible behaviour”, and could pose a problem for the broadcasters who aired the show. “We can do it the easy way or the hard way,” he said.

The statements went too far even for a handful of Republican lawmakers, including Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who likened them to talk about the Mafia. But during the hearing, Carr denied that the comment was a threat in the first place, calling the idea “a projection and distortion by Democrats.” He has repeatedly doubled down on his insistence that the FCC must ensure that broadcast licenses are used for the public good, including by imposing sanctions against alleged distortion of the news. He refused to express his regret for these comments. “My job is to enforce the law passed by Congress, which includes a public interest standard that is fundamentally different from broadcast television than any other media,” Carr told the committee.

For the most part, it was Democrats who criticized Carr for his comments about Kimmel, but Cruz repeated his criticism at the beginning of the session. But he also accused fellow Democrats of hypocrisy over their silence about alleged harassment during the Biden administration. Cruz called on his fellow Democrats to join him in passing Repairs.

numerous Groups He owns He warned that the public interest obligation and news distortion standards for broadcast licensees are overly vague and flawed, and Democrats might be open to improving them. Carr appeared at the hearing alongside the other FCC commissioners, Democrat Ana Gomez and Republican Olivia Trusty. Speaking with reporters afterward, Gomez said she “welcomes Congress’ legislation on the public interest standard because what we have seen under this administration is the weaponization of the FCC and the abuse of our regulatory authority in order to silence free speech.” Gomez accused the Republican majority of “babbling about the phrase ‘acting for the public good’ as an excuse to go after content this administration doesn’t like. That’s not true. It goes against the First Amendment.”

Most Republicans besides Cruz either did not take issue with Carr’s broadcast threats, or attacked Democrats for alleged hypocrisy without taking a stand themselves. Many Republicans asked about less controversial topics, such as broadband maps and robocall scam enforcement.

By contrast, Carr and his team of Democrats often end up talking over each other in tense exchanges. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) asked whether Carr would have threatened broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air if he had made the kind of statements Trump made on Truth Social recently, The statement is baseless Progressive filmmaker Rob Reiner was killed because he angered people with “Trump derangement syndrome.” “Democrats on this platform accuse me of engaging in censorship, and now you’re trying to encourage me to censor online expression. I simply won’t do that,” Carr responded. Schatz asked if there were any conservative commentators or comedians saying anything offensive that he might consider investigating. “I don’t look at things that are offensive or terrible, to use your words,” Carr said. “I look at things that are consistent with our public interest rules and regulations.”

When Carr tried to turn Klobuchar’s questioning about alleged oversight by the Trump administration back to the Biden administration, Klobuchar pushed back. She said: “Joe Biden is no longer president. You are the chairman of the FCC, and Donald Trump is president and I am trying to deal with this now.”

Other Democratic senators relied on a clear pattern at the FCC: The agency no longer views itself as independent. Carr declined to give a yes or no answer to Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) on whether the FCC is an independent agency. Logan uploaded a printout from the FCC website stating this. “That’s not a trick question,” Logan said. When Carr acknowledged that the FCC was not independent, he asked Logan: “Is your website lying? Is your website lying?”

“Maybe,” Carr said.

It appears that the FCC’s website was recently updated to remove the word “independent.” Public Knowledge’s Broadband Policy Director Alyssa Valentine Ali Bluesky said The FCC’s website still appears to call the agency independent as of 11:54 a.m. Wednesday. Internet Archive Another arrest Page of October 1, when the word “independent” still existed.

Carr did not answer a question from Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) about whether he had any conversations with the president or his senior officials “about using the FCC to go after critics,” saying he would not discuss specific conversations with the president. When Kim rephrased the question of whether it was appropriate for the administration to give such guidance to lobbying media companies, Carr declined to “enter into assumptions.”

“The easy answer is no,” Kim said. “It’s not hypothetical, it’s literally just trying to determine whether or not you understand that your job belongs to the American people. Trump is not your president. The American people are your president.” Kim also noted that Trump did so Published in August He would be a supporter of the FCC revoking the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC because he believed they were involved in biased coverage of him.

Cruz and Kim discussed past examples of lawmakers who pressured the FCC to scrutinize media mergers based on what each viewed as partisan interests. But Kim said such letters are “the appropriate oversight role for Congress” and very different from “President Carr’s threats to companies he directly regulates.”

At the end of the talks, the two lawmakers expressed common ground. “The First Amendment is not just a one-way license for one party to abuse power and not abuse the other party,” Cruz said. “Instead, we must respect the freedom of expression of all Americans, regardless of party.” Kim said he agreed, and said he hopes to work together “to show that we do this no matter who violates it, and that we are trying to show that integrity in the process.”

Carr has It has already been rejected One Democratic senator is calling for him to resign, and Congress seems unlikely to make any serious attempts to remove him. Cruz seems eager to use this moment to pass legal changes that he believes conservatives will appreciate once the shoe is put on the other foot. The question now is whether he can build a coalition strong enough to do so.