Brendan Carr’s First Amendment fights at the Federal Communications Commission now stretch from late-night TV to broadcast ownership rules. Carr, the Republican FCC chair under President Donald Trump’s second term, oversees an agency with power over television, radio, and internet providers, and The Verge has reported that he has used that perch to pressure broadcasters over speech critical of Trump.
The sharpest example is ABC’s brief removal of Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night show after Carr invoked the FCC’s news distortion policy, according to The Verge. Kimmel later returned to television and directly criticized Carr, saying government pressure on affiliates that carry his show was illegal and dangerous.
What did Brendan Carr do at the FCC?
Carr has threatened broadcasters that aired jokes about Trump, defended his conduct before the Senate Commerce Committee, and resisted a push by former FCC officials to repeal the agency’s news distortion policy, according to The Verge. That policy became the center of a court fight after a bipartisan group of former FCC commissioners and staffers asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to force the FCC to vote on a repeal petition.
The former officials filed that petition in November 2025 after Carr used the rule in the Kimmel dispute. They later sought a writ of mandamus, a court order that would force agency action, because only the FCC chair can bring the matter to the full commission for a vote and Carr had not done so while opposing repeal.
Congress has also started poking at the same pressure tactic. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, introduced the JAWBONE Act, which would let people sue for damages if a government official illegally coerces a social media, AI, or broadcast company to remove a post. The bill would apply even if the company refuses the pressure, and it would add transparency rules for government communications with those companies.
Jawboning is the plain old government-pressure problem with a Washington nickname: an official tries to get a private company to suppress speech without issuing a formal order. That distinction matters because private companies can make their own moderation or programming calls, while the First Amendment limits what government officials can coerce them to do.
What is the FCC ownership cap?
Carr is also pushing a structural change to broadcasting. In a Breitbart op-ed, he announced that the FCC will vote on August 6 on whether to eliminate the national broadcast ownership cap, which bars a single company from owning stations that reach more than 39 percent of US TV households.
The rule was designed to stop one company from controlling too much broadcast television and to encourage stations to serve local communities, according to The Verge. Carr argues that streaming services and social media platforms have made the limit outdated because national programmers can reach the entire country without using broadcast airwaves. His position is that the cap denies broadcast station owners the same scale available to their digital competitors.
Carr’s FCC has taken other speech-adjacent moves, too. The agency’s Media Bureau sought public comment on whether the TV ratings system properly handles children’s shows featuring transgender or nonbinary characters. Carr also reportedly sent letters to the BBC, PBS, and NPR about whether a BBC documentary with a misleading edit of a Trump speech aired in the US, according to Breitbart’s account as cited by The Verge.
The through line is regulatory leverage over media companies that carry speech Carr dislikes or wants changed. Carr and his supporters describe some of these moves as enforcement, modernization, or transparency. Critics cited by The Verge, including editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, see a campaign against First Amendment protections, with broadcast licenses and FCC procedures doing the dirty work.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
