FCC Chair Takes Victory Lap After Muzzling Kimmel

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr—who just a few years ago was waxing poetic about how political satire is the “oldest and most important form of free speech”—is now using The Office GIFs to celebrate taking away Jimmy Kimmel’s freedom of speech.

Carr appeared on conservative commentator Benny Johnson’s podcast and floated punishing Kimmel for making remarks about Trump’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s killing. While ABC was not initially going to rebuke Kimmel, as his statements were pretty run of the mill, threats from Carr and the Trump administration regarding pulling their broadcast licenses made them cave. Late that night they suspended Kimmel indefinitely.

Carr, who wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC, has been jubilant in the days since Kimmel’s muzzling. Wednesday night he went on Hannity for a victory lap.

“Late-night shows, something’s gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause, for laugh lines, to applause lines. They went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology,” Carr told Hannity. “There’s more work to go, but I’m very glad to see that America’s broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of the community and we don’t just have progressive foie gras coming out from New York and Hollywood.

Kimmel is no cleric. And Carr is rich for acting as if his firing was the product of some local, grassroots campaign when it’s extremely clear that this was a result of direct pressure on ABC from the federal government.

The backlash to Carr’s spineless hypocrisy has been swift, as receipt after receipt of him defending the same principles he is now attacking is circulating widely.

“Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not,” he said in 2019. “The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of ‘public interest.’”

“From Internet memes to late-night comedians, from cartoons to the plays and poems as old as organized government itself—Political Satire circumvents traditional gatekeepers & helps hold those in power accountable,” he said the very next year. “Not surprising that it’s long been targeted for censorship.”

The plug has been pulled on another Trump-critical late-night host, and the president is over the moon.

“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,” Donald Trump posted to Truth Social Wednesday. “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

“Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible,” he continued, referring to Stephen Colbert, who had his show on CBS canceled in July.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! was put on indefinite hiatus Wednesday by Nexstar, one of the largest owners of ABC stations in the country. Nexstar said it “strongly” objected “to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk,” according to a statement.

Kimmel was excoriated by Republicans after he suggested earlier this week that Kirk’s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, was a MAGA conservative.

“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,” Kimmel said during a monologue.

But emerging details have painted a more complicated picture of the 22-year-old Utahn, who according to his friends was relatively apolitical.

The move to deplatform Kimmel immediately followed a threat from Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, who condemned Kimmel’s language as the “sickest conduct possible.”

“[This] appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into the narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person,” Carr told YouTuber Benny Johnson. “What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr was celebrating the decision hours later. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the FCC chair thanked Nexstar for “doing the right thing” and implored other broadcasters to “follow Nexstar’s lead.”

Trump was, apparently, in a similar headspace. On Truth Social, the president made it clear that his ideal version of a late-night lineup involves nixing two other NBC hosts who have been hard on his administration. Addressing the network directly, Trump urged NBC to fire two of its stars: Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

“That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” Trump wrote. “Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”

But Nexstar’s opposition to Kimmel’s monologue might not be entirely moralistic. The massive broadcast network is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion deal to buy Tegna, an acquisition that would make Nexstar the biggest owner of local stations in the country.

The pattern is remarkably similar to the circumstances surrounding Colbert’s ended contract. Colbert’s show—the most popular show in its time slot—was canceled three days after the comedian claimed that Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over his groundless lawsuit targeting Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview looked like a “big, fat bribe.” Days after the cancellation was announced, the FCC approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance.

President Donald Trump announced that he would designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization—but not only do anti-fascists not commit nearly as much political violence as the far right, they’re not even an organization. Oh yeah, and Trump’s move is illegal.

“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices.”

But antifa, which is short for “anti-fascist,” is a movement, not a group. The so-called organization lacks a central structure and is instead a loose network of individuals and groups who act separately under the banner of opposing facism.

In May 2020, Trump announced that he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization, and Attorney General Bill Barr warned he would treat violence from group members as domestic terrorism. But in September 2020, FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress that antifa was an ideology, not a group or organization, earning him an earful from Trump.

Crucially, the president lacks the legal authority to designate antifa as a terrorist organization. Congress previously granted the secretary of state the power to designate foreign groups as foreign terrorist organizations, but has granted no such power to the executive branch to designate domestic groups.

During Trump’s first term, Mary McCord, a former senior official at the Department of Justice, told Al Jazeera there was no procedure for “designating domestic organisations as terrorist organisations,” and Trump’s efforts raised “significant First Amendment concerns.”

It’s worth noting that while counterprotesters acting under the antifa banner have sometimes turned violent, the actual rate of political violence motivated by left-wing ideologies is dwarfed by right-wing violence. Between 1975 and September 2025, individuals motivated by right-wing ideologies such white supremacy, involuntary celibacy, and anti-abortion beliefs committed 391 murders, according to the Cato Institute. Comparatively, people motivated by left-wing ideologies were responsible for 65 deaths.

It seems Trump’s latest effort is a reactionary move following the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, which elicited condemnations of left-wing violence before the shooter’s identity was even known. Earlier this week, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said that the administration planned to “channel all of the anger that we have over the organised campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.”

As of yet, there is no evidence to suggest that Kirk’s death was linked to the network known as antifa or that his assassin was motivated by a radical left-wing ideology.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday described a “curious balance” in the labor market, in which both supply and demand have sunk “sharply,” thanks to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and potentially his tariffs.

Asked whether tariffs have created the weakened U.S. job market, Powell said that is “certainly possible.” But while trade policy “may” be affecting the labor market, Powell said, “the change in immigration” is the primary reason “employment is doing what it’s doing.” The change, of course, being Trump’s disruptive mass deportation campaign, which has dramatically decreased the supply of workers.

Amid this decrease in supply, Powell added, “demand for workers has also come down quite sharply,” leading to a “curious balance,” he said, repeating a term he used in a speech last month. “Typically when we say things are in balance that sounds good,” he added. “But in this case, the balance is because both supply and demand have come down quite sharply.”

The situation Powell described, some observers noted, resembles stagflation—the dreaded combination of stagnant economic growth, rising prices, and high unemployment. “‘Curious balance’ … Say the S word Jay,” tweeted Kevin Green, a markets correspondent at the Schwab Network, alongside a crying-laughing emoji.

At least eight members of the military have been punished for comments made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, and dozens more have been doxed and reported.

Task and Purpose reports that at least five Army officers and one Air Force sergeant have been suspended, one Marine was fired from his recruitment job for posting a meme of Kirk captioned, “Another racist man popped,” and one Army reserve major is under investigation.

“The Department of War maintains a zero-tolerance policy for military personnel or DOW civilians who celebrate or mock the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” the Pentagon posted from its rapid response account last Friday on X.

Even so, it won’t be as simple to just fire soldiers for posting things that don’t align with the current administration’s politics as the Pentagon is making it out to be.

“People who join the military have less First Amendment rights than those who don’t, but they still have robust First Amendment rights,” former military colonel, judge, and prosecutor Don Christensen told CNN. He went on to note that nothing says, “Pete Hegseth doesn’t like what you’re saying so I’m going to prosecute you.”

“You can’t just say out of the blue, ‘If you say something on social media about Charlie Kirk that Pete Hegseth doesn’t like, that’s a crime,’” Christensen continued.

While that may be true, it’s likely that the Pentagon’s gag order has already had the desired chilling effect.