In a pair of posts on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said Saturday that MSNBC is a threat to democracy and parent company Comcast “should be forced to pay vast sums of money for what they've done to our country.” He called Comcast “Concast” and MSNBC “MSDNC” in one post, in which he also said the “whole corrupt operation is nothing more than an illegal arm of the Democrat Party.” MSNBC has “BAD PEOPLE AT THE TOP!” he said in another post. Trump has repeatedly decried Comcast, and the FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr has opened an investigation into Comcast's diversity policies and reinstated a complaint against NBCUniversal over allegations that it violated the FCC's equal opportunity rules (see 2502110063).
Free Press co-CEOs Jessica Gonzalez and Craig Aaron urged the Senate Commerce Committee to "refuse to ratify" President Donald Trump's FTC and FCC picks ahead of a Tuesday hearing with FTC nominee Mark Meador, a former staffer for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and FCC nominee Olivia Trusty, who was an aide to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Gonzalez and Aaron said in a Monday blog that the committee should not act "unless and until the Trump administration reverses course, guarantees the independence of expert agencies, disavows any plans to remove sitting commissioners, and respects the separation of powers." They also urged the Senate Commerce Committee to "haul in" FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson to "answer for their actions before giving them even more power to abuse." The Trump administration is "threatening to remove sitting commissioners without cause, slashing budgets with abandon, and sacking staff without authority or due process," the co-CEOs said. "It’s a brazen abuse of executive power designed to settle political scores and undermine the long history of bipartisan deliberation and debate that informs decision-making at these essential agencies."
Telecom and utility companies must engage in early communication and collaboration to ensure efficient and safe broadband deployment, industry leaders said Monday at NARUC's Winter Policy Summit. NARUC Telecom Committee members also voted unanimously to adopt two resolutions on utility demand response communication and on vandalism or theft of communications infrastructure.
An FCC advisory opinion on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would be “a fool's errand” and should be “DOA,” Commissioner Anna Gomez said Sunday in a thread on X responding to a New York Post report that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is planning to act on 230 soon. “The FCC should not be in the business of controlling online speech,” Gomez said. “Congress and the courts must quickly step in to stop this unlawful power grab.”
Public broadcasting is facing the “most significant” funding challenge it has seen in 30 years, America's Public Television Stations President Kate Riley said Monday at the APTS 2025 Public Media Summit in Washington. Congressional efforts to defund public media are “predictable threats” but grant-freezing executive orders and the FCC's investigation of NPR and PBS stations are “unpredictable threats,” Riley told the “fly-in” gathering of PBS station managers.
FCC staff on Saturday received the same email that most federal employees did from the Office of Personnel Management, asking them to justify their work, but it was unclear Monday how or if FCC staff would respond. The FCC didn’t comment Monday. The leaders of unions that represent federal employees slammed the email. President Donald Trump said Monday he supports the effort.
Kyle Zebley, the American Telemedicine Association's senior vice president-public policy, sought Friday to ease concerns of Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and others that Medicare could stop covering most telehealth services on April 1. A December continuing resolution to extend appropriations to the FCC and other federal agencies through March 14 also temporarily prolonged some temporary rules changes, giving Medicare recipients eligibility for telehealth services until March 31 (see 2412230024). Zebley said Friday that “conversations on Capitol Hill confirm that President [Donald] Trump and his team are actively working with Congress to extend vital telehealth flexibilities beyond” March 31.
The outlook is uncertain about whether President Donald Trump will attempt to fire Democratic members of the FCC, as the administration asserts its authority over “so-called independent” agencies (see 2502190073). It’s unclear whether the FCC and its Democratic members, Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks, are in Trump’s sights, but no one is taking anything for granted from the current administration, industry experts said. Gomez is emerging as the more outspoken critic of the regime under Chairman Brendan Carr, especially on media items (see 2502200023).
The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector, also known as Team Telecom, notified the FCC this week that it's reviewing Bell Canada's proposed acquisition of Ziply Fiber (see 2412090045). The deal is straightforward, and “there is no significant risk to the transaction being approved,” New Street's Blair Levin said Thursday. But, he added, approval may get caught up in President Donald Trump’s pursuit of tariffs.
Satellite interests, led by SpaceX, are hungry for more spectrum for direct-to-device (D2D) service and are expected to seek access to the upper C band, which the FCC will examine in a notice of inquiry set for a vote at Thursday's open meeting (see 2502060062). Elon Musk, who is playing a huge role in the new Donald Trump administration and heads SpaceX, could influence what the FCC does, industry experts note.