Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, made a series of telling remarks last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas that journalist Anthony Fisher said revealed him to be “arguably the most eager-to-please attack poodle in Trump’s kennel,” writing in an op-ed published Tuesday in MS NOW.
Carr has come under fire from critics over his threats to revoke licenses from television broadcasters critical of President Donald Trump and his administration. While Carr has insisted the threats were only targeting what he called “hoaxes and news distortions,” his remarks at CPAC appeared to tell a different story.
“Look at the results so far. PBS defunded. NPR defunded,” Carr boasted at CPAC, MS NOW reported. “[Stephen] Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership. And soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well.”
Carr’s remarks, Fisher argued, made it “obvious” what Carr’s motives were in targeting media outlets.
“It’s obvious why Carr, a hyperpartisan culture warrior, would consider these ‘wins.’ And his assessment matches the zero-sum Trump worldview: Somebody wins, somebody loses,” Fisher wrote.
“Still, a more savvy player would have hidden the ball a little better. The defunding of PBS and NPR were done for nakedly political purposes (Trump’s executive order was literally called ‘Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media’), but in crediting Trump for the upheaval at CBS and CNN, Carr blew off the flimsy facade that the changes were strictly made for business and journalistic reasons.”
Earlier this month, Carr was hit with a profanity-laden warning from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) that his actions were “flagrantly anti-First Amendment,” and that if he continued to threaten media outlets, he would “be sued,” and he would “lose.”