Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, agreed to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee to testify about the events that led to ABC’s temporary suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Carr, in comments on a conservative podcast prior to Kimmel’s benching, had threatened to investigate claims of “news distortion” against ABC affiliates, implying the FCC could pull their broadcast licenses, unless they took Kimmel off the air.
No date has been set for Carr’s appearance yet. A spokesperson for the committee told Variety they were pressing to schedule the hearing. According to a report by Semafor, which first reported the news, the committee is expecting the hearing to be held in November but that the date could move later. The FCC’s two other commissioners, Republican Olivia Trusty and Democratic appointee Anna Gomez, are also expected to appear at the hearing.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chairs the Senate Commerce Committee. Two weeks ago, Cruz criticized Carr’s comments about Kimmel, comparing the FCC chairman to a “mafioso,” and said it set a bad precedent for ensuring free speech for conservatives.
The controversy started after Kimmel on the Sept. 15 episode of his show said that the “MAGA gang” was trying to “characterize” the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk “as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” On Sept. 17, Disney-owned ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Carr threatened to take action against local affiliates over the remark, which he called “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
On the podcast of conservative commentator Benny Johnson, Carr threatened ABC and its affiliates if they did not “take action” on Kimmel: “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 there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Carr said. Shortly afterward, two large ABC station groups — Sinclair and Nexstar — said they were preempting Kimmel’s show (and Sinclair specifically thanked Carr for his remarks). Carr celebrated the news about Kimmel’s suspension, sending a CNN reporter a GIF of “The Office’s” Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute making “raise the roof” gestures.
Last week, Carr downplayed his role in Kimmel’s suspension, saying that he never threatened to revoke licenses and that Nexstar and Sinclair opted to preempt the show of their own accord. Carr said his comment that “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” was a hypothetical point about what the FCC might do if there was a “news distortion” complaint filed against Kimmel and ABC and that Democrats had engaged in “distortion and projection” over his comments.
“What I’ve been very clear in the context of the Kimmel episode is the FCC and myself in particular have expressed no view on the ultimate merits [of a ‘news distortion’ complaint about Kimmel] had something like that been filed what our take would be one way or the other,” Carr said Sept. 22 at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit in New York.
Cruz, on his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” said he “hates what Kimmel said” and that he was “thrilled that he was fired.” (Kimmel was not “fired.”) However, Cruz said, about Carr’s threats to broadcasters, “That will end up bad for conservatives. There will come a time when a Democrat wins again, wins the White House. They will get rid of everything America that’s conservative. They’ll get rid of every podcast. They’ll get rid of everything. They will silence us. They will use this power and they will use it ruthlessly and that is dangerous.”
After ABC announced the suspension of Kimmel, Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, suggested Carr was exploiting Kirk’s assassination “as justification for broader censorship and control.” “This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression,” she wrote in a post on X. “And it is doing so not because speech glorifies violence or breaks the law, but because it challenges those in power or reflects views they oppose. We must stand firm against every attempt to silence dissent, punish satirists and government critics, and erode individual liberty.” When Disney reinstated Kimmel, Gomez said, “I am glad to see Disney find its courage in the face of clear government intimidation.”
Meanwhile, last week Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) and eight other senators sent a letter to Carr posing a series of questions about the episode. They wrote that Carr’s actions in the Kimmel situation, along with President Trump’s lawsuits against media organizations and the defunding of public broadcasting, “represent the most blatant and coordinated attack on the free press in American history.”
“The FCC’s regulatory authority over broadcast licenses was never intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical commentary,” Schiff and the other senators wrote. “Your agency’s mission is to serve the public interest, not to act as an enforcement arm for political retribution against media outlets that displease those in power.” The letter asked Carr to disclose any communications between the FCC and ABC, Disney or its affiliates about the Kimmel show, as well as any communications with the White House.
A separate group of senators, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), sent a letter to the CEOs of Nexstar and Sinclair asking them to explain their decisions to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, including whether Nexstar’s decision had anything to do with its pending $6.2 billion merger with Tegna, for which it needs FCC approval.
Sinclair and Nexstar announced Sept. 26 that they were ending their preemption of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and would immediately begin airing the show on their ABC affiliates. Both companies claimed their decisions were independent of any government influence or communications. Sinclair and Nexstar also both asserted that they were justified in originally deciding to preempt Kimmel’s show.
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