Brendan Carr Lobs More Empty Threats At ABC For Not Airing Trump’s Election Fraud Lies

from the pathetic,-weak-men dept

Earlier this year FCC boss Brendan Carr launched a series of fake investigations into ABC because the network (1) hosted Democratic Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico on The View, (2) aired comedians who made fun of the president and his wife, and (3) occasionally engaged in journalism critical of Trump corruption.

The details of these investigations really don’t matter at this point. We’ve discussed how they’re legally incoherent, clearly violate the First Amendment, and involve Carr actively manufacturing false claims that ABC violated FCC rules it was long-exempt from. At other points it just involves Carr being incoherently racist on Trump’s behalf; such as claims that ABC didn’t eliminate its “DEI” requirements quickly enough.

Carr’s now dumping additional empty threats into the mix, claiming that his ongoing review of ABC’s local broadcast licenses will take into consideration the network’s refusal to air Trump’s recent prime time speech, which mostly just involved Trump spewing more false election fraud conspiracy theories surrounding his 2020 loss.

ABC and NBC wisely refused to air the speech live, knowing that helping to spread distrust in election integrity in real time would be the opposite of useful journalism. That made Trump mad, so he’s clearly urged Brendan Carr to levy some additional empty threats against ABC:

“I think when you have the President of the United States standing inside the White House delivering an important speech, I think that’s something that broadcasters should be carrying. And so, obviously, this is an issue,” Carr told reporters Wednesday. “There have been lots of concerns raised, including by members of Congress, about whether broadcasters and their decisions there comply with the public interest.”

Carr is somewhat vague here because he knows this is a bunch of bullshit.

Obviously it’s ABC’s First Amendment right to determine what it broadcasts and when. Carr has absolutely zero legal role in determining the scheduling lineup of a private company. Carr’s once again pretending that networks that refuse to pander to our mad idiot king will be subjected to FCC review of their public interest obligations affixed to ownership of public airwaves.

As we’ve mentioned countless times already, Carr doesn’t want any of this to actually head to court because he knows it’s an absolute loser on First Amendment grounds. The real goal remains to threaten U.S. media companies with costly and annoying legal headaches if they challenge Republicans or the unpopular president. It’s typical lazy autocrat stuff by weak men who are afraid of words.

When it comes to ABC, that’s still been embarrassingly effective. The company agreed to pay Trump a $16 million bribe in 2024 to settle a baseless lawsuit the company easily could have won. And more recently, ABC shows like The View have shied away from hosting any political candidates at all for risk of upsetting Trump.

Brendan Carr has openly stated in interviews he fancies himself a tough, pit bull enforcer; but as Trump’s health and political power wane, the threats will hold less and less weight. As a result you’ve already seen ABC execs start to show a backbone in their fight with Carr, openly pointing out how he colluded with local right wing broadcast affiliates to manufacture evidence suggesting ABC broke FCC rules (something I’m sure will play great in court).

Carr’s threats will become weaker and weaker until he’s ultimately booted from office by subsequent administrations, at which point he’ll fail upward to some mid-six figure job at a telecom or media think tank, where he’ll spend the rest of his life helping corporate America dismantle whatever’s left of competition, labor, and consumer protection standards.

One of the ironic things, for Carr, is that his authoritarian censorship and saber rattling often draws press and public attention away from all the other terrible things he’s doing, whether it’s destroying media consolidation limits, making life easier on robocallers, dismantling broadband consumer protection standards, or making it easier for giant shitty companies to run amok.

You’d like to think Carr ultimately faces some sort of meaningful accountability for being one of the most censorial, petty, captured, and authoritarian regulators in U.S. history, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Filed Under: brendan carr, censorship, fcc, first amendment, james talarico, media

Companies: abc, disney