“Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish suppress views that the government disfavors.” –Supreme Court of the United States, NRA v. Vullo, May 30, 2024
As he keeps eroding our health system, abusing the Justice Department, threatening to de-license broadcasters he doesn’t like, and otherwise pushing for more power, President Trump has hit a roadblock, and some Kentucky Republicans are partly to thank for it.
Rep. Brett Guthrie, Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul objected to interference by Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, in the controversy over remarks by late-night talker Jimmy Kimmel about the assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk. Their pushback, and that of others, likely led Carr to back off and ABC to reinstate Kimmel’s show, which it had suspended after Carr bluntly intimidated the network and its affiliates.
Contrary to belief of many Kirk fans, Kimmel said nothing bad about him. On the day of the murder, he used social media to condemn it and send love to Kirk’s family. He said on his show, “The MAGA gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” His second assertion was accurate, but his first rested on a bad presumption that the killer was a MAGA man. There was some evidence suggesting that possibility at the time Kimmel spoke, but it soon proved off base, giving Carr an opening.
Carr said in a podcast interview, “In some quarters there’s a very concerted effort to try lie to the American people about the nature, as you indicate, of one of the most significant, newsworthy, public-interest acts that we’ve seen in a long time, and what appears to be an action, appears to be action, by Jimmy Kimmel playing into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person.”
Saying he was trying to strengthen the FCC’s enforcement of the law that requires broadcasters to serve the public interest, Carr went overboard: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s gonna be additional work for the FCC ahead. . . . There’s calls for him to be fired; you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. The FCC is gonna have remedies that we could look at.”
It didn’t take long for Nexstar Media Group, which is seeking FCC approval of a merger that would violate current local-TV ownership limits, to say that its 20-plus ABC affiliates would stop airing Kimmel indefinitely. The suspension quickly followed, and Carr exulted, “We’re not done yet.”
Not so fast. The next day, Thursday, Sept. 18, Guthrie said “We have to be extremely cautious to not try to use government to influence what people say.” Guthrie chairs the House committee that oversees the FCC, so he probably got Carr’s attention.
Three days later, on “Meet the Press,” Paul said, “Brendan Carr’s got no business weighing on this. . . . I’ll fight any attempt to get the government involved with speech.” Massie, who has drawn Trump’s ire and an effort to defeat him, called Carr’s remarks “antithetical to the First Amendment.”
The strongest objection came from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who said Carr’s “easy way or the hard way” line was “dangerous as hell” and sounded like the mobster movie “Goodfellas.”
“As a First Amendment guy, I think he’s probably got it right,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, who selectively picks his battles with Trump and commented on X after I made an inquiry to his office Monday. He added, “You don’t have to like what somebody says on TV to agree that the government shouldn’t be getting involved here.”
Rep. James Comer replied to my inquiry: “The federal government must never interfere with Americans’ constitutional right to free speech.” Republican Reps. Hal Rogers and Andy Barr, who wants Trump’s endorsement for the Senate, didn’t reply before my deadline. The only Democrat in the Kentucky delegation, Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Louisville, said “This administration is blatantly threatening broadcasters’ licenses as a punishment because Donald Trump disagrees with what’s being said about him. That’s a clear case of censorship, it should be disavowed by everyone, and shake our country to its core when we see the President actively silencing his critics.”
Some conservatives say Carr’s remarks were analogous to Biden health officials asking social-media platforms to suppress misinformation that might have made the COVID-19 pandemic more deadly. But they made no gangster-like threats, which our proto-dictator and some of his allies seem to enjoy.
In December, X owner Elon Musk said “Legacy media must die.” That’s a rejection of the basic concept of the news business, which pays for journalism. (They are separate things.) When the nation’s electronic news business becomes dominated by corporations who stand to gain or lose billions at the hands of the government, and the government pressures them to squelch certain voices, we begin to look more like Hungary than the country we have always known. So let’s be glad some Kentucky Republicans spoke up. And wish they would on some other stuff.