Carr, Rosen Tussle Over Hearing Exchange on Request to Probe Fox News
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Senate Commerce Committee member Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., traded barbs Wednesday night and Thursday over their exchange at the panel’s commission oversight hearing (see 2512170070) about what the senator called inconsistent handling of news distortion complaints against media companies. Carr refused during the hearing to commit to Rosen’s request that he open “an investigation into Fox News” for editing a 2024 interview with now-President Donald Trump amid his election contest that showed only part of his answer to a question about whether he would release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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After the hearing, Rosen posted video on X of part of the exchange, in which she pressed Carr for a Fox News investigation because of concerns about his decision to reopen a Center for American Rights call for the FCC to probe CBS. CAR claims the network's editing of a 60 Minutes interview in October 2024 with former Vice President Kamala Harris violated the FCC’s rarely used news distortion rule (see 250205006). CBS parent Paramount Global in July reached a $16 million settlement of Trump's lawsuit over the Harris interview (see 2507020053).
Carr shot back Wednesday night that Rosen “left out the portion of our exchange where I explained to you that you had confused a *cable program* for a *broadcast program* As I said, I’m not investigating a *cable program* based on your claim that it violated FCC rules that apply only to a *broadcast program*.” Carr told Rosen during the hearing that there was “no role for the FCC” to investigate Fox News because it’s a cable channel and therefore there's “no public interest standard, there's no broadcast hoax rule, there's no news distortion” rule that would cover its transmissions. Rosen at the time responded that “there is a rule for fairness, and the American public understand what's fair and just.”
Rosen responded Thursday by asking Carr if he “let your boss,” a reference to Trump, “know about this distinction” and posted an image of a Vibe report about the president’s early October demand that the FCC investigate NBC because cable channel MSNBC, which was spun off as MS Now, aired Rev. Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation show. That show is among the examples of NBC showing “almost exclusively positive Democrat content,” Trump said on Truth Social at the time.