Pai Chairman's Dinner Jokes Skewer Many, Including Kavanaugh, Verizon, Tech Companies
With targets such as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Verizon, plus speculation about his own political ambitions, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's monologue at the FCBA Chairman’s Dinner Thursday was a wide-ranging roast. Noting the Washington Capitals' Stanley Cup win,…
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Pai said it's "interesting the Capitals won only after they dropped Verizon from the building. Correlation? Causation? I don't know." He joked that Amazon didn't buy a table at the dinner "because the FCBA refused to fork over $600 million in subsidies." Facebook has faced controversy about privacy violation allegations and antitrust uncertainty, he said, but its "recent search innovation will ensure nobody in China will know about any of it." He singled out those at the American Cable Association table as "the only folks ... to be mentioned positively in a tweet by the president" (see 1811130039). Likening T-Mobile's planned buy of Sprint to the sitcom The Office, Pai said it's "up to the FCC to decide, are they more like Jim and Pam or Dwight and Angela? Because I never thought Dwight and Angela's relationship was necessarily in the public interest. A bunch of investment analysts now have to binge watch The Office." Pai said if the communications universe received a false emergency alert about an inbound ballistic missile due in 30 minutes, like the one received by Hawaiians in January (see 1801160054), Fight for the Future "would immediately start organizing a net neutrality 25 minutes of action" while "NAB would ask the FCC to extend the 39-month incentive auction repacking ... before Washington is destroyed." Sizable portions of the monologue involved sports. Pai, gushing about Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, said, "If the Big Lebowski and a Reese's mug had a baby, it would be Pat Mahomes." The event also featured a "car karaoke" video of Pai and a variety of people -- from Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein to former Commissioner Mignon Clyburn -- singing along with Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" while he drove. Digs at Communications Daily were included. Pai asked attendees if they had read Comm Daily's brief report on wireless pet collars (see 1812030015), saying they can be worn not just by dogs, and his administration is all for "pet neutrality." Pai said he downloaded issues of publications including Comm Daily into an artificial intelligence program that wrote part of this monologue for him. In a serious moment, Pai honored deceased President George H.W. Bush and a number of FCC employees.