Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr is set to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee later this year following controversy over his remarks about comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
This panel is chaired by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and has jurisdiction over the FCC, though no official date has been set for Carr’s testimony, according to NBC News.
Notably, Cruz took exception to the comments made by Carr, saying on his podcast that the threats made by the chairman were “dangerous as hell” for both Republicans and Democrats, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The testimony will be based upon Carr’s comments about Kimmel, in which he implied that the FCC would impose sanctions on Disney and ABC if action was not taken to punish Kimmel for the comments made about Kirk.
Now, Carr has claimed that the media has “misrepresented” the comments that he made, adding that the stations chose to suspend Kimmel for “business” reasons.
“There was no threat made or suggested that if Jimmy Kimmel didn’t get fired, that someone was going to lose their license,” Carr said, per The Guardian.
Carr later added that Democrats have attempted to make this controversy “about distortion and projection” rather than the issues with Kimmel, according to The Guardian.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Carr’s comments came after Kimmel drew criticism for jokes he made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, prompting the FCC chairman to urge local broadcasters to reconsider airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC.
Carr said ABC and Disney “can do this the easy way or the hard way,” seemingly implying that the commission was prepared to target the media producers if Kimmel was not removed from the air. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr claims that his comments were misrepresented. This assertion may be supported by his earlier remarks during the discussion, as the FCC chairman addressed the licensing granted to media companies immediately before making comments that could be interpreted as controversial.
Carr stated that these companies have an “obligation to operate in the public interest.”
“They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. And we can get into some ways that we’ve been trying to reinvigorate the public interest and some changes that we’ve seen,” he added.
Many major media carriers, including Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, initially pulled the Kimmel show from ABC-affiliated stations. However, ABC and other carriers eventually reinstated the program after it had been off the air for some time.