Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) offered some rare Republican congressional criticism of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whose threat to ABC stations was followed by the network pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show from its schedule.
On his podcast, Cruz even compared Carr’s remarks to an intimidation tactic out of Goodfellas, and the senator even took to imitating mafia voices to get his point across.
Cruz said that, in his comments about Kimmel earlier this week, Carr “threatens explicitly. ‘We’re going to cancel ABC license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast anymore.’ And I got to say he threatens it, he says, ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”
In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel 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.”
That triggered a furor on the right. On Tuesday, authorities cited evidence that the suspect was starting to lean more to the left. On Benny Johnson’s podcast on Wednesday, Carr said that ABC had to address the situation.
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or 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.
Hours later, Nexstar announced that it was pulling the show from its ABC stations, and soon after Disney-owned ABC said that the show was being pulled “indefinitely.” Nexstar and Disney each have transactions before the Trump administration that need the regulatory greenlight.
The suspension of Kimmel has generated its own backlash, with protests at Disney, congressional Democrats vowing legislation and investigation and Barack Obama calling out media for not defending their First Amendment rights.
Cruz is no fan of Kimmel, and said that he was “thrilled that he was fired,” even though the late-night host has been suspended for now.
Cruz is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has oversight over the FCC. He warned that Democrats could wield their own power over the airwaves if they return to the White House.
“Let me tell you what will happen. Going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat wins again, wins the White House. They will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly, and that is dangerous,” he said.
He added, “By the way, in the Biden administration, they tried to go after and revoke Fox’s license because they didn’t like and they say everything they say on Fox is hate speech. I’m sure they say everything you and I say is hate speech, is misinformation. They’ve defined anything counter to the leftist narrative as misinformation.”
Cruz appeared to be referring to public interest group Media and Democracy Project’s petition challenging the Murdochs as license holders of a Fox Philadelphia affiliate. Their challenge was based on revelations from the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case against Fox News. Fox settled the lawsuit for $787.5 million just as the case was going to trial.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, appointed by Biden, was criticized for delaying the station’s license renewal, but she dismissed Media & Democracy Project’s complaint just before leaving her office in January.
Cruz said that he thought that Kimmel’s remark “slandered Charlie Kirk and his family,” as many on the right have claimed the late-night host was pegging the suspect as part of the MAGA movement. But Cruz said that the remedy should be a defamation lawsuit and “let that process play out.”
Cruz said, “I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, ‘We’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.’ And it might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel. But when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it. And so again, I like Brendan Carr, but we should not be in this business. We should denounce it. It’s fine to say, ‘What Jimmy Kimmel said was deplorable. It was disgraceful. And he should be off air. But we shouldn’t be threatening government power to force him off air. That’s a real mistake.”
An FCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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