President Donald Trump's top communications regulator is being haunted by words he wrote just a few years ago.
In a column published Friday by The Bulwark, critic Sonny Bunch zeroed in on a February 2021 statement from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr condemning Democrats for sending letters to cable providers and other regulated companies that carried certain news outlets.
At the time, Carr warned those companies were being told they "will pay a price" if the targeted newsrooms didn't fall in line, calling it "a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys."
Bunch argued Carr has since become exactly what he once denounced, describing him as "one of President Trump's favored tools of government interference in day-to-day life" who leaps into action whenever the president wants a critic silenced.
Trump appeared to relish that reputation at a campaign rally in Alaska earlier this week, where he gave Carr a chuckling introduction. "And we have the FCC head, the most-feared man in government here, Brendan," Trump said. "Thank you, Brendan, what the hell are you doing here?"
Bunch pointed to a string of moves he said reflect that role. CBS parent Paramount agreed to pay $16 million toward Trump's future presidential library to settle the president's lawsuit over a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris, after Carr signaled the dispute could hold up its merger with Skydance. Carr approved the deal soon after.
ABC's Jimmy Kimmel was yanked off the air hours after Carr warned "we can do this the easy way or the hard way" over a joke about Charlie Kirk's assassination. And Carr is reportedly probing ABC News' website, even though the FCC has no authority over online news.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez told Bunch the agency has abandoned its independence. "The FCC has become a political arm of the administration," she said. "Prior to this administration, our decisions were based on technical expertise and policy concerns, not the political whims of the White House."
Bunch contrasted Carr with Ajit Pai, who led the FCC during Trump's first term and declared in 2017 that the agency "does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast."
The hypocrisy, Bunch wrote, isn't even the worst of it. Concentrating that much power in one man's hands, he argued, is "antithetical to freedom of expression," and he predicted little will change without serious oversight from a Democratic-controlled Congress.