The Federal Communications Commission must include strong First Amendment protections while using its authority to protect the public interest, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr agreed during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Carr's comments came in response to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during questioning over whether the FCC overstepped its role in disputes over media content, including with the controversy over late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel and his comments about late conservative leader Charlie Kirk.
Cruz said ABC and its affiliates had the right to respond to Kimmel's remarks, but warned that government pressure on broadcasters crosses a constitutional line.
"ABC and its affiliates would have been fully within their rights to fire him or simply to no longer air his program," Cruz said. "But what government cannot do is force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly."
Cruz argued that officials threatening consequences for disfavored content amounts to "an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech," and asked whether the FCC's public interest standard should explicitly reflect First Amendment safeguards.
"So long as there is a public interest standard, shouldn't it be understood to encompass robust First Amendment protections to ensure that the FCC cannot use it to chill speech?" Cruz asked.
"Yes, senator, I agree with you there," Carr responded.
Carr said the FCC must strictly follow existing law and precedent to avoid constitutional conflicts.
"First and foremost, we have to make sure the FCC is hewing to precedent," Carr said. "The FCC has to write within the four corners of our precedents to be consistent with the Communications Act and the First Amendment concerns as well."
Carr also stressed the legal distinction between broadcast television and cable networks, noting that cable channels do not operate under the same licensing regime.
"In the cable context, it is entirely different," Carr said. "There is no license. There is no public interest standard."
He pointed to past efforts by Democrat lawmakers to pressure cable companies over programming decisions, including calls to drop Newsmax and other conservative networks because of political disagreements.
"There again, it was cable: No broadcast license, no public interest standard," Carr said.
The exchange came amid heightened scrutiny of the FCC after Carr raised questions about whether broadcasters could face regulatory consequences following Kimmel's remarks.
Democrats have accused Carr of politicizing the agency, while Republicans have warned against using regulatory power to influence editorial decisions.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.