Senate Commerce Plans Dec. 17 FCC Hearing, With Democrats Likely to Roast Carr
The Senate Commerce Committee said Friday night that it plans to hold a much-anticipated FCC oversight hearing Dec. 17. Panel Democrats have been pressing since late September for Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to bring in FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to face questions about his mid-September comments against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as instigating the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air (see 2509220059). Cruz was among several Republicans who also criticized Carr’s comments (see 2509190059).
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Carr and the other sitting FCC commissioners -- Democrat Anna Gomez and Republican Olivia Trusty -- will appear at the Dec. 17 hearing, Senate Commerce said. Ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us a few hours before the hearing announcement that she hadn’t “heard a date or a time” when it would occur. Senate Commerce noted that it last held an FCC oversight hearing in June 2020 (see 2006240069), when Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., was chairman.
During a hearing late last month, Cruz pushed back against Democrats’ calls to expedite a panel eyeing Carr’s conduct by noting that the party’s panel leaders failed to hold any similar event when they were in the majority during the last Congress (see 2510290046).