According to Deadline, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Trump appointee, faced sharp questioning from Democratic lawmakers during a recent Senate Commerce Committee hearing over controversial remarks he made about Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Democrats argued that Carr’s comments raised concerns about the potential use of the Federal Communications Commission to pressure media companies airing content critical of former President Donald Trump.
As Deadline reports, Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, pressed Carr on whether his public statements could be interpreted as regulatory threats toward broadcasters. Schatz suggested that Carr appeared to dodge direct answers when asked if he was leveraging his role to intimidate media outlets. Carr pushed back on the accusation, denying that he threatened license revocations while maintaining that the FCC has long held authority to oversee broadcast content under its public interest mandate.
According to Deadline, criticism intensified when Sen. Edward Markey, Massachusetts Democrat, called on Carr to resign. Markey accused the FCC chairman of abandoning the agency’s core mission and acting as a censor. He pointed not only to the Jimmy Kimmel Live! controversy but also to a prior FCC investigation involving a Bay Area radio station that reported on an ICE raid during the Trump administration.
Deadline notes that the dispute traces back to comments made by Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night host (The Man Show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?), during a September episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Shortly after, Carr appeared on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson, where he described Kimmel’s remarks as “some of the sickest conduct possible” and suggested that broadcasters airing similar content could face fines or challenges to their licenses.
According to Deadline, Carr’s remarks were followed by swift reactions from multiple media companies. Nexstar Media Group temporarily pulled the show from its stations, ABC placed it on hiatus, and Sinclair Broadcast Group also removed it from its lineup. Although Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to the air the following week, Democratic lawmakers accused Carr of engaging in regulatory “jawboning,” using implied threats to influence private broadcasters without formal enforcement action.
Concerns deepened further, Deadline reports, when Carr raised questions during the hearing about whether the FCC should continue to be considered an independent agency. Around the same time, language describing the FCC as “independent” was reportedly removed from the commission’s website, prompting renewed alarm among lawmakers about political interference and the potential erosion of First Amendment protections.