Brendan Carr, commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, speaks during a House hearing in Washington on May 21, 2025.  Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg via Getty Images

When Brendan Carr, Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, demanded that Disney/ABC jump, the influential media conglomerate replied, “How high?”

That’s effectively what happened when Carr, an ardent Trump loyalist, offered harsh criticisms of late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel’s statements about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer. The comments, Carr said, were “sick.”

“These companies can find way to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Carr said, adding that they could handle situation “the easy way or the hard way.”

Within hours, Disney/ABC opted for the easy way, suspending Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.”

In his effort to bring the media to heel, Trump could not invent a better ally than Carr.

Disney took the action in the crosshairs. Its move can’t be separated from Carr’s threats — or years of Trump’s criticism of Kimmel. The president quickly let the truth slip when he said, after Kimmel’s suspension, that television networks providing him “bad publicity” should have their broadcast licenses revoked.

It was the latest salvo in the war on freedom of speech waged by the MAGA movement, a war in which Carr has been Trump’s most loyal lieutenant. The FCC holds tremendous sway over broadcast media, but few administrations have pushed the boundaries of its power — and few appointees at the agency have openly talked about doing so with such nakedly political aims the way Carr does.

In his effort to bring the media to heel, Trump could not invent a better ally than Carr, who has laid out a program for weaponizing the FCC against Trump’s enemies.

Do you even understand the level of fit that @BrendanCarrFCC has? Please check ??? pic.twitter.com/zZYZt7Q4vj

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 3, 2025

It’s not hard to see the extraordinary depth of Carr’s dedication to Trump: While many officials wear American flag pins on their lapels to show loyalty to the country, Carr has proudly posted photos of himself wearing a gold Trump bust — demonstrating such total fealty that it won admiration on X from Benny Johnson, another Trump loyalist.

From Plan to Action

Carr jointed the FCC as a staff lawyer in 2012 and was appointed by Trump as a commissioner in 2017.

In 2024, amid the presidential campaign, Carr waged an unabashed campaign to be named FCC chair. He appeared on Fox News espousing Trumpist talking points and authored the chapter on the FCC in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s controversial blueprint for a new Trump term. Already a commission member, Carr ignored the FCC ethics attorney’s warnings about becoming the first sitting government official to work on a political document like Project 2025, and he brushed off admonishments to not use his official title in doing so.

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As the Biden administration wound down, then-FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed four complaints before the commission, including one against Fox affiliates and the Murdochs from the Media and Democracy Project, which I co-founded.

As soon as he became chair, Carr began implementation of a Trump-inspired agenda. He reopened three of the complaints — those with a conservative bent — against ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates. He left ours in the trash, even though it was based on the same public interest standard that that Carr now claims to be championing in his case against Kimmel. (Our case is currently under appeal.)

Carr’s fellow commissioner, Anna Gomez, called out the moves: “I am concerned that this is a clear attempt to weaponize our licensing authority, to instill fear in broadcast stations and influence a network’s editorial decisions.”

Instilling fear to influence editorial decisions is exactly what Carr is doing. He has also bullied companies into making moves that suit the Trump agenda.

After he threatened to hold up Paramount/CBS’s merger with Skydance, Paramount paid a $16 million lawsuit settlement to Trump, and the merger was soon approved. After a meeting as part of the deal, David Ellison, the billionaire Trump ally who owns CBS’s new parent company, made a series of pledges to Carr, including a promise to scrap diversity initiatives at the channel. Making good on another pledge, after the merger Ellison installed an ombuds at CBS with strong conservative credentials.

Carr also launched investigations into NPR and PBS, the public broadcasters lambasted by the right for a purported liberal bent.

Overall, it has been a particularly active year for the FCC — not least because of the campaign waged against Disney/ABC.

Relentless Pressure

Disney/ABC is learning that if you give in to a bully once, they will come back for more. The company already paid off Trump for his claim to have been defamed by news anchor George Stephanopoulos. Trump threatened ABC reporter Jonathan Karl just for asking impertinent questions.

And Carr played a pivotal role in the Kimmel affair. It was only after his threat of FCC action that Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group, two media conglomerates that own a host of local ABC affiliates, said they would be pulling Kimmel’s show. Under duress, ABC quickly fell in line.

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Trump and Carr’s ability to push corporate media into doing what they want demonstrates how badly we need a diversity of media organizations — not the industry consolidation in the hands of billionaire Trump allies we are seeing today.

Carr is taking aim at an independent media by pushing consolidation forward. The FCC is considering removing the rules restricting consolidation of TV station ownership to give right-wing networks like Sinclair the latitude to increase their dominance in the distribution of information.

It’s a disaster in the making for media in this country — and Carr is doing it faster than anyone could have expected.

The post Why FCC Chief Brendan Carr May Be the Most Dangerous Man in Media appeared first on The Intercept.

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