Jimmy Kimmel suspension puts spotlight on Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC chair

President Donald Trump hailed Brendan Carr as a “warrior for free speech” when he tapped him to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the independent agency that regulates the broadcast television industry and other platforms.

Carr has lived up to the warrior moniker. Since he took the job, Carr has launched a wave of investigations against leading media corporations and criticized some for perceived liberal bias.

He appears to have scored his biggest win yet Wednesday with ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show from the airwaves^[1] just hours after he blasted Kimmel for his comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

“We’re not done yet,” Carr said Thursday on CNBC as Kimmel’s defenders and the FCC’s critics accused him of waging a crackdown on free speech^[2] in America.

The chairman of the FCC doesn’t typically attract the spotlight, but Carr has frequently made headlines. He has taken such prominent names as CBS News and The New York Times^[3] task, and his office has launched formal reviews of the “big three” broadcast networks — ABC^[4], CBS^[5] and NBC^[6] — as well as NPR and PBS.

“I think this is unprecedented,” said Craig Aaron, a co-chief executive of Free Press, a nonprofit organization that advocates against corporate monopolies in media. “I think there’s a lot of people who have been in power or been in the White House who would, in the past, like to bend and abuse the power of the FCC, to bend the will of the media that covers them and the comedians that make fun of them — but they’ve never dared to go this far.”

Carr, 46, known for wearing a gold-colored pin modeled on Trump’s profile, was a lawyer in private practice before he joined the FCC in 2012 as a staff attorney. He later was an adviser to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Trump appointed Carr to a Republican seat on the commission in 2017, during his first term, before he elevated him to the top job.

In the intervening years, Carr had raised his profile inside the Republican Party and the wider conservative ecosystem. He wrote a chapter about the FCC for the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership” policy document — better known as Project 2025.

“The FCC should promote freedom of speech,” Carr wrote in the opening^[7] to his chapter.

Trump has had long-running grievances with the media, which he has routinely characterized as “fake” and an “enemy of the people.” Trump has sued various news organizations, having most recently filed a $15 billion defamation suit^[8] against the Times for articles questioning his business success.

“President Trump took on the legacy national media,” Carr said July 24 on X^[9]. “He smashed the facade that they — and their Hollywood and New York execs — get to control the narrative. President Trump is now stacking up the wins with more to come.”

Carr’s aggressive moves come during a period of immense technological and cultural transition for the traditional media as it confronts the rise of generative artificial intelligence, growing competition from foreign-owned platforms such as TikTok and the decline of broadcast and cable television viewing.

The media industry has also rapidly consolidated around a handful of big corporate players — giving Carr more influence — as the national political culture has become more fractured and polarized. Carr’s FCC, which regulates television and radio stations, wireless communications and telephone and broadband services, has found fault with corporations that have both news and entertainment divisions.

Carr’s latest salvo came Wednesday, when he described Kimmel’s on-air comments about Kirk’s murder investigation as “the sickest conduct possible” and said the FCC could revoke ABC affiliates’ licenses as punishment.

“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said in an interview on conservative commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

In his opening monologue Monday, Kimmel expressed condolences to the Kirk family but criticized Republicans for their reaction to his killing. “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said.

Authorities have charged Tyler Robinson, 22, with murder. Officials said Robinson grew up in a conservative household in Utah but later became influenced by “leftist ideology^[10].” Robinson’s mother told investigators that “over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” according to charging documents^[11].

Carr told Johnson that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people.”

Nexstar, an owner of ABC affiliate stations across the United States, announced after Carr’s podcast appearance that it would pre-empt Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future” because of his comments. Nexstar recently said it hopes to take over a rival firm, Tegna, in a blockbuster $6.2 billion deal — one that would require FCC approval.

Then the bigger shoe dropped: ABC announced it was “indefinitely” suspending “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the network’s late-night franchise. Kimmel, a mainstay of ABC for more than 20 years, frequently mocks Trump and, in turn, draws the ire of the president, who has called him a “loser” and urged ABC to cancel his show. Kimmel didn’t immediately comment on ABC’s decision.

ABC’s announcement Wednesday led to an outcry from a wide array of voices, from comedians such as Marc Maron to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech advocacy group, as well as various Democratic elected officials. In blistering statements and social media posts, critics accused ABC of kowtowing to political pressure — and suggested the Trump administration was chilling speech.

Trump cheered the suspension as “Great News for America.” Carr appeared on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show Wednesday and said “there’s more work” to do. He praised Nexstar on X for “doing the right thing.”

In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Carr said Nexstar’s objections to Kimmel’s show were signs of a “healthy, functioning market,” adding: “I think it was those local communities and viewers that were saying, you know, we don’t like this stuff anymore.”

Asked by CNBC host Jim Cramer whether the government should have “someone who reviews the writers before the host says something,” Carr replied: “No.”

The FCC didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment on which FCC regulations Kimmel may have violated.

Carr applauded CBS’ recent decision to cancel^[12] “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” The network insisted the move was a “purely financial decision,” but Colbert’s fans reacted skeptically, pointing to his track record of satirizing Trump — and the FCC’s key role in approving a merger between CBS parent company Paramount and the media firm Skydance.

“The partisan left’s ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is quite revealing. They’re acting like they’re losing a loyal DNC spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws of economics,” Carr said on X on July 22^[13].

In the last nine months, Carr has taken a confrontational stance with the traditional media business. In the wake of Trump’s executive order dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government, Carr opened an inquiry into Disney and its ABC network over concerns they were “promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination.”

Separately, ABC agreed in December to pay $15 million as part of a legal settlement with Trump, who had sued ABC, ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation over an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. An ABC News spokesperson said at the time^[14]: “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing.”

Carr opened a similar DEI-focused review of Comcast and NBCUniversal, the parent companies of NBC News, over DEI programs^[15]. His office also launched an investigation into Comcast and NBCUniversal’s relationships with local broadcast television affiliates.

Carr’s office is also investigating CBS over allegations of “news distortion” related to a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that ran during the 2024 presidential election. Trump himself sued Paramount over the same interview, alleging it had been deceptively edited — a claim CBS strongly denied.

In July, Paramount agreed to settle^[16] with Trump for $16 million. The same month, the FCC approved^[17] Skydance’s $8 billion takeover of Paramount. Skydance made a number of concessions to the FCC^[18] as part of the deal, vowing not to implement any DEI initiatives and promising to appoint an ombudsman to review “complaints of bias” at CBS News.

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly,” Carr said in a statement at the time. “It is time for a change.”

Tom Wheeler, the chair of the FCC during President Barack Obama’s second term, said Carr was wielding “incredible coercive power” by launching investigations and threatening to hold up mergers^[19] while stopping short of taking formal FCC votes against Trump administration opponents.

When the FCC takes a formal action on an issue such as whether to allow a media merger, subjects can launch legal appeals in court. But Carr is working in a legal gray area, Wheeler said, by publicly stating how he wants media companies to act without forcing a formal FCC vote.

“This has been the artful way that the Trump administration has been able to exercise this kind of coercive influence without triggering court review,” Wheeler told NBC News. “We’re seeing it again: ‘This is what I want you to do, but I’m not going to have a formal action that you could appeal to the court.’”

“You always want to be friendly with the agency making the rules and that can decide important issues in mergers and other kinds of rulings,” he said.