Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said the White House did not pressure him to launch an early review of eight ABC broadcast licenses over President Donald Trump’s anger at late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, promising it stemmed solely from the FCC’s investigation into the company’s diversity initiatives.
Still, he told a reporter the president had “every right” to call for Kimmel’s firing over a joke he made on his show ahead of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last weekend.
“He has every right to make the decisions that he’s made, to make the public calls that he’s made, same with the first lady,” Carr said during a press conference on Thursday. “And there’s a lot of people out there that agree with them.”
He also said Disney would have to “come in and demonstrate that they’ve been operating in the public interest,” indicating the early review could rope in the Kimmel matter as the FCC looks at ABC’s licenses.
The comments came two days after the FCC demanded Disney’s ABC stations file for an early review of its broadcast licenses, one day after Trump and Melania Trump called for Kimmel to be fired over the joke. Kimmel quipped last week in a monologue spoofing the correspondents’ dinner that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow,” a joke he said riffed off the president’s age but one the first couple has linked to political violence.
Carr told reporters there was much “confusion” linking the two cases, but he claimed he was focused on the diversity, equity and inclusion elements of the case. He said Disney, in its document production, “was not forthcoming with the agency” in the documents it produced. (Disney declined to comment.)
“I understand that anything that we do is now framed as ‘in the wake of’ in the headlines, and I understand that’s how it is,” Carr said. “But we got to make these decisions based on where we are in the investigations and what is best for next steps in that enforcement proceeding.”
The FCC’s demand prompted bipartisan pushback, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) claiming he did not want the agency to be the “speech police.” Carr said he agreed with the senator, though he reiterated that the Disney ask was “driven by an investigation into DEI conduct, not any speech at all.”
Carr also brushed off the National Association of Broadcasters’ anger over the move, saying there were other, faith-based broadcasters who did support his actions. “So I think broadcasters are not in a unanimous group here,” he said.
The FCC has also probed Comcast’s diversity initiatives, but Carr said he could not say whether its broadcast licenses for NBC stations would come under early review.
“It depends on where the investigations go,” he said. “We’re gonna be driven by the facts of each individual investigation. I don’t have an update right now on where we are in that Comcast one.”
