In several tense exchanges with Democratic senators, FCC Chairman Brendan Kahl denied accusations of censorship and defended his agency’s actions against broadcasters.
“You are now the president of the ‘Federation'” Censorship Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Kahl during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday. “And these broadcasters, they feel the censorship.”
Kahl insisted he was carrying out his duties in accordance with the wishes of Congress.
Trump suggests FCC re-examines licenses in response to fallout from Jimmy Kimmel preemption
Carr told Markey: “If broadcasters understand, maybe for the first time in many years, that they will be held accountable to the public interest, to the rules of broadcast mischief, to the policy of news distortion, I think that’s a good thing.”
Heather Diehl/Getty Images – Photo: Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Kahl speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee oversight hearing at the U.S. Capitol on December 17, 2025 in Washington.
Two major national groups have temporarily dropped ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after Markey accused Carr of issuing “mafia threats” to network owners – an accusation Carr denies.
“If you look at the evidence, every company involved, from Nexstar and Sinclair to Disney, just last week made it clear that these business decisions were theirs to make,” Carr insisted.
Markey cited the case of KCBS station in San Francisco, where a news anchor was reportedly demoted and eventually left the station after the FCC reviewed a report on an ICE raid in January that described the types of vehicles agents were driving.
“Well, guess what happened?” Markey said. “The network demoted the anchor who first read the news story on the air and pulled the political coverage. You got what you wanted.”
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, accused Kahl of overstepping his authority, abusing his regulatory powers and threatening to infringe on broadcasters’ First Amendment rights.
Heather Diehl/Getty Images – Photo: Senator Ed Markey attends a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee oversight hearing at the U.S. Capitol on December 17, 2025 in Washington.
Carr believes his predecessor left his agency’s historic role dormant.
“I think if you step back, over the years, I think the FCC has moved away from enforcing public interest standards, and I don’t think that’s a good thing,” he told Klobuchar.
“My position, and I think the Trump administration’s position, is that we should enforce these rules and policies,” Carr told Schatz. “Congress, you are free to change that.”
In fact, the committee’s Republican chairman said at the panel’s first oversight hearing into the FCC in years that reform of the nearly century-old law, under which the FCC launches investigations into broadcasters, was “long past time.” He also insisted that the FCC does not consider itself the arbiter of fact.
In his opening statement, Cruz said it was a “simple fact” that Congress should end the FCC’s public interest standards and what he called an “unfortunate descendant” of the commission’s news distortion rules.
Both, he said, “have lost whatever utility they once had, and it’s long past time for Congress to pass reform.”
In a brief exchange with Kahl, Cruz said the public interest standard has been “used against conservatives” in past administrations and that the committee’s threats to take action against unpopular content amounted to “an unconstitutional form of coercion that chills protected speech.”
“Whether it’s Democrats or Republicans, we cannot let the government arbitrate truth or opinion,” Cruz said.
In response, Carr said he agreed with Cruz that the public interest standard should not be used to suppress speech.
Heather Diehl/Getty Images – Photo: Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Anna M. Gomez speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee oversight hearing at the U.S. Capitol on December 17, 2025 in Washington.
But rather than address his own conduct this year, Carr quickly turned to an example from the Biden-era FCC, which allowed a petition challenging the renewal of licenses for Fox-owned stations to survive based on complaints about election-related content aired by Fox News Channel.
“First and foremost, we must ensure that the FCC follows precedent,” Carr said.
But what the government cannot do,” Cruz said, “is force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly. Government officials threatening adverse consequences for unpopular content is an unconstitutional form of coercion that chills protected speech. “
Since taking over as chairman of the committee in January, Carr has opened (or threatened to open) multiple investigations into radio and television station owners and launched the first lawsuits in decades to examine power dynamics in the business relationships between networks and their affiliates.
Carr also said he supports eliminating or weakening Federal Communications Commission regulations limiting the number of cell towers a single company can own.
In his opening remarks, Carr said his agenda included “empowering stations to meet their public interest obligations.”
The law requiring licensed stations to operate in the “public interest, convenience and necessity” dates back to the Radio Act of 1927, although the term was never defined in statute.
The hearing also heard testimony from Carr’s fellow commissioners, Democrat Ana Gomez and Republican Olivia Trust.
Gomez accused the Trump administration of waging a campaign to control the media and silence critics and using the Federal Communications Commission to achieve those goals.
“We’re hearing from broadcasters that they’re afraid to air programs that are critical of this administration because they’re afraid of being hauled in front of the FCC,” Gomez said.
