Baldwin Joins Senators Denouncing FCC Chair After Kimmel’s Suspension
'This is precisely what government censorship looks like,' they charge.
Senator Tammy Baldwin. File photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Democratic senators including Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) have written to the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to criticize the agency’s chairman’s attacks on late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.
ABC television, part of Disney, suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely Wednesday after criticism of the comedian’s remarks that FCC Chair Brendan Carr made on a right-wing podcast.
On his program, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday and Tuesday, Kimmel made several comments about last week’s shooting of Charlie Kirk, including the statement that “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
The Associated Press reported the suspension was announced after a group of ABC affiliates said they would not air Kimmel’s program and after Carr suggested on the Benny Johnson podcast Wednesday that the FCC was considering taking action against the network.
In a letter Thursday, 11 Democratic senators, including Baldwin, told Carr, “You proceeded to threaten that the FCC ‘can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and telegraphed that ‘there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead’ unless ABC affiliates ‘find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel . . .’”
“It is not simply unacceptable for the FCC Chairman to threaten a media organization because he does not like the content of its programming — it violates the First Amendment that you claim to champion,” the senators wrote.
“The FCC’s role in overseeing the public airwaves does not give it the power to act as a roving press censor, targeting broadcasters based on their political commentary,” they added. “But under your leadership, the FCC is being weaponized to do precisely that.”
The letter calls Carr’s statements “a betrayal of the FCC’s mission,” suggesting that he was trying to police speech and “force broadcasters to adopt political viewpoints that you favor,” and “requiring them to act in ‘Trump’s interest’” rather than in the public interest, as called for in the Federal Communications Act.
The letter notes that Nextar — which operates 23 ABC affiliates according to the AP and has a merger pending before the FCC — announced it would take Kimmel’s show off the air. Disney then announced it was suspending Kimmel’s show indefinitely.
“This is precisely what government censorship looks like,” the senators wrote.
Carr’s comments were an about-face from a 2022 post on X, when he defended late-night comedians and political satirists and “rightly rejected government censorship as a threat to our First Amendment protections,” the senators wrote. “But as FCC Chairman, you now have apparently forgotten these principles.”
The letter demands that by Sept. 25, Carr answer three questions in writing: about the FCC’s public interest standard and its definitions of political bias; whether the agency has communicated with Disney, ABC or their affiliates about Kimmel and his show; and what he meant by “the hard way” and “the easy way” in his podcast remarks.
The letter was led by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts). In addition to Baldwin it was signed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington), Ben Ray Lujan (D-New Mexico), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Delaware), John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), Gary Peters (D-Michigan), Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota).
Wisconsin’s Baldwin joins senators calling out FCC after chair’s remarks, Kimmel’s suspension was originally published by the Wisconsin Examiner.
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