FCC chairman Brendan Carr will testify before the Senate Commerce Committee about government censorship after facing criticism for comments he made leading up to Disney’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
An individual familiar with the matter tells TheWrap that a date for the hearing has not been set. FCC commissioners Anna M. Gomez and Olivia Trusty are also slated to appear.
A representative for the FCC did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.
The late night host was pulled from the airwaves over comments made about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin. In a podcast interview following the comments, Carr threatened to take action against Disney and Kimmel over the remarks.
“When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said at the time. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Hours after the interview, broadcast station owners Nexstar and Sinclair pulled Kimmel from their airwaves and ABC would later follow suit. The move would trigger protests from writers and union members, calls to cancel Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions and an open letter from the American Civil Liberties Union signed by over 400 artists condemning the suspension.
Disney said it pulled Kimmel to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” adding that some of his comments were “ill-timed and thus insensitive.” But after “thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel over multiple days, a decision was reached for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to return six days later.
Though Nexstar and Sinclair would continue to preempt the show following Kimmel’s return, they both eventually brought him back to the airwaves later that week following discussions with Disney leadership. An insider familiar with those discussions told TheWrap that no editorial or content concessions were made between Disney and Sinclair and Nexstar.
Carr’s comments also received pushback from both sides of the political aisle, with Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz notably slamming them as “dangerous as hell” on his podcast, “Verdict With Ted Cruz.”
“I’ve gotta say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” he said.
“I’ve gotta say, look, I understand. Jimmy Kimmel has mocked me so many times I cannot count. The corporate media, they’re dishonest, they are liars, I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said,” Cruz continued. “But let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”
The FCC’s Open Committee meeting earlier this week was also hit with protestors calling on Carr to be fired.
Meanwhile, Sens. Edward J. Markey, Chuck Schumer, Amy Klobuchar, Maria Cantwell and Ben Ray Luján were among 11 politicians previously calling for Carr to testify before the committee in order to explain his statements against ABC and Kimmel.
“As the Committee with jurisdiction over the FCC, it is our Constitutional duty to conduct oversight over this matter and demand Chairman Carr answer for this unprecedented attack on the First Amendment,” they said in a letter to Cruz. “You have long prioritized conducting oversight to ensure our government is not being used to weaponize the censorship of speech. At a time when free speech is under threat, this hearing could not be more important for the American people. We look forward to working with you on this hearing with Chairman Carr and upholding our duty to conduct robust oversight over the FCC.”
During Concordia’s 2025 Summit, Carr said Democrats were “completely misrepresenting” the work of the FCC and that allegations that he threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license if they didn’t fire Kimmel “did not happen in any way, shape or form.”
Carr further stated that he and the FCC “expressed no view” on the merits of complaints about Kimmel and that the FCC is trying to empower local TV stations to serve the needs of their local communities.
“You got national programmers — like Disney, like Comcast, like Paramount — that aren’t licensed by the FCC, that have no public interest obligation, and they provide a lot of the primetime shows that the licensed TV stations put out over the air. And what’s happened over the years is that those national programmers have exerted more and more control and pressure on the local TV stations,” he said. “They don’t feel like they can push back on the national programmers, even when they think there’s some content that they don’t think in their judgment, not my judgment, makes sense for the local communities.”
The chairman added that the agency welcomes “wide open, robust, uninhibited debate” on social media and cable, but argued broadcast TV is “just different.”
“It’s got a license. There’s a public interest standard, and Congress has called on the FCC to enforce that. And if people don’t like it, they can go to Congress and change the law, or they can turn their license in,” he concluded. “There are people that are interested in trying to create a narrative that, simply, I don’t think exists.”
