Don’t expect major daylight between a Kamala Harris administration and the Joe Biden White House on major communications policy issues, industry and policy experts predicted. Much focus and effort would center on defending the FCC's net neutrality and digital discrimination orders in the current federal circuit court challenges, as well as pursuing net neutrality rules, they said. Less clear would be the nature of the relationship between Harris' White House and Big Tech. The Harris campaign didn't comment. Deregulation and undoing net neutrality are considered high on the to-do list for the administration of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump if he's elected (see 2407110034).

A change in presidential administration doesn’t worry state broadband offices around the U.S., though stability in NTIA's broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program would help, several directors from red, blue and purple states said. Since President Joe Biden stepped aside, a new president in 2025 is certain. Yet in interviews this month at the Mountain Connect conference in Denver, state leaders stressed that their goal of expanding high-speed internet to everyone will remain no matter who wins in November. A President Kamala Harris is seen as especially unlikely to change NTIA’s BEAD program in major ways, several said.

As industry looks beyond the Biden administration (see 2408130062), the FCC could have some busy months ahead of it. A pair of commissioner meetings is scheduled before the November elections, with at least two more before the inauguration of the next president. While past commissions have focused on less controversial items ahead of a presidential contest, which likely won’t be the case this year, industry officials say. Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the slight front-runner for the presidency since President Joe Biden left the race based on most recent polls, although the election is expected to be tight.

As Democrats gather in Chicago to formally launch the Harris-Walz campaign, Communications Daily explores the implications for telecom policy. In our latest Special Report, veteran Comm Daily reporters investigate how the dramatic change in Democratic electoral fortunes is altering -- or reinforcing -- regulators’ plans and expectations.

Expect a Donald Trump White House and FCC to focus on deregulation and undoing the agency's net neutrality and digital discrimination rules, telecom policy experts and FCC watchers tell us. Brendan Carr, one of the two GOP minority commissioners, remains the seeming front-runner to head the agency if Trump wins the White House in November (see 2407120002). Despite repeated comments from Trump as a candidate and president calling for FCC action against companies such as CNN and MSNBC over their news content, many FCC watchers on both sides of the aisle told us they don’t expect the agency to actually act against cable networks or broadcast licenses under a second Trump administration.

Former President Donald Trump famously doesn't do policy detail, but this time around his senior advisers and self-described MAGA revolutionaries are doing it for him. Trump himself has repeatedly called for punishment of disfavored media, including FCC-licensed "fake news" outlets. But the specifics of the disruptions planned for policy and governance of telecom (along with many other sectors) are most explicitly framed in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the massive policy prescription directed in part by Trump's past and presumably future advisers and appointees. Among contributors is FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, author of the chapter on the future of the agency and telecom policy as a whole. In this Comm Daily Special Report, published on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, our award-winning editorial team looks at the ideas and the people that would transform telecom in America if Donald Trump is returned to office. (Our counterpart examination of Democratic plans -- whether under a reelected President Joe Biden or someone else -- will appear in August.)

Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington appears likely to win renomination regardless of which party takes the White House in November, lawmakers and lobbyists said in interviews. Some observers believe it's unlikely Democrats will use Simington's 2025 confirmation process to strike back against any FCC structural changes Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr may propose if former President Donald Trump wins and nominates him as chairman, as expected (see 2407120002). Carr’s reconfirmation last year (see 2310020043) means his term doesn’t expire until 2028, so he wouldn't face a new round of Senate scrutiny.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr is widely seen as the favorite to become FCC chair in a second Donald Trump presidency, and former FCC staffers and communications industry officials told us they expect a Carr-led FCC would prioritize policies he wrote about in the telecom chapter of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. For example, the chapter lays out plans for rolling back Section 230 protections for tech companies, deregulating broadband infrastructure and restricting Chinese companies.

Donald Trump recently has distanced himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto (see 2407050015), but its authors are his close policy advisors. Accordingly, his election would likely mean chaos for the federal bureaucracy, including agencies like the FCC, FTC and the NTIA, experts said. As many as 50,000 federal employees could lose their jobs if a Trump administration cleans house, experts told us. Project 2025 includes a chapter on the FCC that Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote. Carr is considered the favorite to become FCC chair if Trump wins (see 2407120002).

States hope they can increase federal engagement on telecom no matter who is president in 2025, current and former state utility commissioners said in interviews. In a possible second Donald Trump presidency, “the states and localities are really going to be where broadband policy is made,” predicted Gigi Sohn, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society senior fellow. Some said there is a lot of uncertainty about how a Trump administration might change rules for state grants under NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.