Former GOP strategist turned Trump administration critic Tim Miller put the smackdown on Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr on MS NOW, following the bureaucrat's far-right speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, boasting about how the agency is putting journalists in their place.
"You know, Tim, we have a lot of these conversations about the watchful eye I keep on the Manosphere," said anchor Nicolle Wallace, referencing influencers like Joe Rogan who once endorsed Trump but have increasingly turned on him. "It is harder to find a defender inside, sort of ... those late arrivers that you talked about than it is to find a critic. Do you think that they will like — it's an applause line at CPAC to say, you know, they defunded PBS and they took these sort of normal journalists off the air. Do you think it will extend if their censorship extends into one's friendly terrain?"
"I don't think so," said Miller. "I don't know, you know, we'll see where the blowback comes from. I think in some ways there is this overlap between people we've been talking about the crowd that was anti-war, that cared about the Epstein files. They also said at least that they cared about free speech. You know, that is different from the CPAC crowd. You know, that is different from the people that have put on the Trump hat and are going to cheer everything up."
"It should be chilling," Miller added. "I mean, people, you're not really even supposed to know who the head of the FCC is. It's like not really a great sign of what the FCC chair is up to if you know who that person is and can name them. I mean, youworked in the Bushadministration. Can you namethe FCC chair for the Bushadministration? I'd beimpressed if you could."
Wallace concurred with a laugh.
"That's the point, because the bureaucrats are doing a job. They're trying to make sure that people don't break the laws," said Miller. "That's not what this is shouting about. 'Sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd' on a partisan stage is insane, and it is authoritarian, and it is a threat. And, you know, I think that these guys should probably be a little bit concerned about where this goes, because I think if the Democrats ever take back power, you know, and if you look at the the way that they have corruptly consolidated media, the way that the algorithms are being abused by Elon Musk on X or by the Ellison family, potentially. We'll see with the purchase of TikTok, you know, the lies that are being spread on some of these outlets like Newsmax and Fox."
"I mean, the Democrats in the past have pulled a lot of punches on this and the spirit of free speech because they want to protect free speech," he continued. "And these guys are changing the rules of the game in a way that I think is pretty ominous and I think might actually boomerang back on them."