House Democrats Hit Carr on Kimmel and Fealty to Trump; Republicans Praise Spectrum Moves
House Communications Subcommittee Democrats fulfilled expectations (see 2601130067) that they would spend much of a Wednesday FCC oversight hearing criticizing commission Chairman Brendan Carr over his media regulatory actions and his perceived devotion to only pleasing President Donald Trump. Republicans avoided those topics almost entirely and instead focused on praising Carr’s FCC tenure. Meanwhile, Carr continued to dodge what ended up being a bipartisan push to pin down his position on proposals to eliminate or ease the national TV station audience reach cap (see 2601140071).
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House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey and other Democrats particularly continued to castigate Carr about his comments against ABC and parent Disney in mid-September over Jimmy Kimmel Live! (see 2509170064 and 2509220059).
Pallone noted Republicans’ relative silence on the matter, though he referenced concerns that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz of Texas raised in September (see 2509190059). “In Trump’s ongoing crusade to chill free speech, punish news networks and vilify American journalism, there has been no greater ally than” Carr, Pallone said. “There was a time when my Republican colleagues would have been up in arms over this, when their allegiance to the First Amendment was greater than their loyalty to one man.”
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said most of Carr’s actions appear “to stem from his new role as an obsequious partisan fulfilling [Trump’s] desire to exact revenge on his perceived enemies and line the pockets of the oligarch class.” House Communications ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said Carr “has stretched the standards of acting in the public interest and preventing news distortion beyond recognition.”
Carr again defended his Kimmel comments and a spate of FCC investigations into news distortion complaints against CBS and other networks, saying they're within the bounds of the commission’s public interest mandate. Carr in part got assistance from questions from Rep. August Pfluger of Texas, chair of the Republican Study Committee, that countered Democrats’ complaints about his interpretation of the public interest standard.
'Projection and Distortion'
Carr said Democrats are engaging in “projection and distortion” by complaining about his exercise of the public interest standard, given what he sees as “actual weaponization of the FCC and communications policy” by party-affiliated lawmakers. He noted a 2018 letter from Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington and 11 other Democratic senators asking then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to review Sinclair's fitness to maintain its broadcast licenses (see 1804120026).
Carr suggested that all but one of the 227 Sinclair licenses “that came up for renewal or pending during the Biden years … were not renewed by the FCC.” That shows Democratic pressure “engendered results,” he argued. “What we're doing is applying the public interest standard in an even-handed way for people that benefited from the weaponization during the Biden years. That may feel like discrimination, but it doesn't make it so.”
Pallone and Clarke were among several Democrats who referenced a disparity in Carr’s comments about the FCC's independence. Since becoming chairman, he has said the FCC isn’t an independent agency, but in written testimony that he gave House Communications during a 2022 hearing (see 2203310060), he said he believed what was then a 2-2 tied commission was “an independent expert agency.” Rep. Rob Menendez, D-N.J., called out the FCC’s removal of its description as an “independent” U.S. agency from its online mission statement, which occurred in the middle of Senate Commerce’s oversight hearing in December (see 2512170067).
Carr said he's “pleased that the FCC website reflects my views” but didn’t explain why the online description changed or if he had made the decision in consultation with Trump. The FCC’s status “is determined by a number of factors … but the key piece is: Can a commissioner be removed by the president for no reason or any reason? Historically, the view had been that courts would read into the Communications Act for-cause removal protection that wasn't in the statute.” Carr argued that's no longer the case, given expectations that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn its 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. precedent, which limits dismissal of commissioners at independent agencies (see 2512080047).
House Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky and House Communications Chairman Richard Hudson of North Carolina were among many Republicans who used the hearing to praise Carr’s actions, particularly his work to implement the 800 MHz spectrum pipeline that Congress passed as part of the 2025 budget reconciliation package (see 2507070045). “I'm pleased that the agency has already begun this work by identifying at least 100 MHz for auction in the upper C band,” Hudson said. He also praised Carr’s draft 6 GHz order and further NPRM (see 2601080066) as “a great first step.”
Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia and several other Republicans focused on the FCC’s work to streamline broadband permitting. Carter cited his American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289), a collection of 22 GOP-led connectivity permitting bills that supporters hope has momentum for House passage this year (see 2601090064).