Trump’s nightmare pick to run the FCC SAY NO TO BRENDAN CARR @ FCC! FREE PRESS IS VITAL FOR DEMOCRACY!

 

For years, Donald Trump has attacked the free press as "the enemy of the people," called for journalists to be prosecuted, and threatened to strip the broadcast licenses of TV networks that dared to fact-check him.¹

And now Trump has picked Brendan Carr, a MAGA loyalist who will carry out Trump's agenda of retribution, to run the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency responsible for regulating most media.

Carr has already said he plans to go after CBS and NBC over Kamala Harris's appearances on 60 Minutes and Saturday Night Live, and he refused to disavow Trump's call to push ABC off the air after the presidential debate.²

This is what authoritarianism looks like — the government abusing power to suppress speech and the free press. Demand Progress Action has fought for years against government attacks on free speech, and we're now facing one of our greatest threats ever.

Will you make a donation to Demand Progress Action and support our work, including fighting back against the corrupt and anti-democratic agenda of Brendan Carr, Trump's pick for FCC chair?

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Of all the extreme, corrupt, and unqualified people that Donald Trump has selected for his administration, one of the most dangerous is Brendan Carr.

A co-author of Project 2025, the 900-page authoritarian manifesto that Trump claimed to know nothing about during the campaign, Carr is a hardcore partisan who will weaponize the FCC to punish journalists who hold Trump accountable.

In testimony before Congress in September, Carr declined to speak out against Trump's suggestion that ABC should lose its broadcast licenses after two of its journalists fact-checked him during the presidential debate.³

Then, in October, Carr attacked NBC after Harris appeared on Saturday Night Live, telling Fox News that the FCC should "keep every remedy on the table" to punish NBC, including revocation of its broadcast licenses.⁴

And later that same month, he attacked CBS over its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris and suggested that he would block the merger of Skydance and Paramount, CBS's parent company, in retaliation.⁵

The FCC is traditionally a nonpartisan agency that rarely gets involved in programming content beyond enforcing obscenity standards. Carr has shown that he will use his power as FCC commissioner to punish Trump's perceived enemies, and his statements may already be having a chilling effect on journalism.

Trump's first FCC chair, Ajit Pai, was terrible, and Demand Progress spent four years fighting to limit the damage Pai could do. But Brendan Carr may be even worse, and we need to be ready to work even harder.

That's why we're writing to you today: Will you donate $20 to help Demand Progress Action resist Brendan Carr's far-right agenda, and push for other key reforms?

With gratitude,

The team at Demand Progress Action

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Sources:
1. Columbia Journalism Review, "Trump Wins, the Press Loses," November 6, 2024.
2. Mother Jones, "Trump's FCC Pick Wants to Intimidate Broadcasters and Enrich Trump Allies," November 18, 2024.
3. The Verge, "Here's FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr sucking up to Donald Trump by threatening to take NBC off the air," November 4, 2024.
4. Mediaite, "'It's a Simple Question!' House Democrat Throws Down With FCC Commissioner On Trump's Call to Strip ABC's Broadcast License," September 19, 2024.
5. Deadline, "Incoming FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Says '60 Minutes' Complaint 'Likely To Arise' As Part Of Agency Review Of Skydance-Paramount Merger," November 19, 2024.