The Wall Street Journal editorial board took a sledgehammer to President Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, over his role in strong-arming Disney to indefinitely suspend late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's ABC show after he criticized how Trump and his supporters have politicized the killing of right-wing youth activist Charlie Kirk.
Shortly after Kimmel's remarks, Carr, who has faced frequent criticism for threatening broadcast news over their content, said Disney can address Kimmel "the easy way or the hard way."
Disney then pulled Kimmel's show after being told it would no longer air by ABC station affiliates owned by two major companies: Sinclair Broadcast Group, which is known for its far-right influence over local news all over the country, and Nexstar, which is in the process of seeking FCC approval for a merger.
Carr's actions, wrote the conservative-leaning board, have given "the left a dose of cancel culture and regulatory abuse" that the GOP itself has long lived in fear of.
"Anyone who thinks this is the free market at work is ignoring the ways government can punish companies. Disney’s executives had to look out for the best interests of their shareholders and the Disney brand," wrote the board. "All the more so given how Mr. Trump has pursued retribution against political opponents in his second term. He’s used regulatory leverage against Paramount and CBS in a weak lawsuit and squeezed liberal law firms to do pro bono work, while the Justice Department is investigating prosecutors who brought cases against him. A regulator like Mr. Carr who might have ignored Mr. Trump’s musings about revenge in the first term doesn’t need direct orders in the second."
"Mr. Kimmel’s comments Monday associating Charlie Kirk’s killer with the 'MAGA gang' were false, callous and stupid," the board wrote. "But they weren’t inciting violence, and in a free society they shouldn’t be cause for the government to push someone off the airwaves. Compared to the malevolent garbage on social media about Kirk and his killer, Mr. Kimmel’s words were only mildly offensive."
The Journal's board has, in previous columns, argued for deregulation of the FCC — precisely, they now wrote, to avoid situations like this.
"The political cycle of using government to punish opponents is taking the country into dark corners that will result in less freedom, and less free speech, for all sides," the board concluded.
