Democratic lawmakers have criticized Carr en masse, saying he abused his power in order to censor speech. Not many Republican lawmakers have done so, but Carr did take heat from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that has oversight over the FCC.
On his podcast Friday, Cruz discussed the Carr comment in which the FCC chair said of ABC, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
“[Carr] says, ‘We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.’ And I gotta say, that’s right outta Goodfellas, that’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it,'” Cruz said.
Cruz: Resist urge to censor opponents
Cruz said he is “thrilled” that Kimmel was suspended, noting that “Jimmy Kimmel has mocked me so many times I cannot count.” But Cruz said that using the government to dictate what the media can say “will end up bad for conservatives,” and that what Carr said is “dangerous as hell.” In a J.R.R. Tolkien reference, Cruz compared the power of government to the power and allure of Sauron’s One Ring.
“It reminds me of like the Ring of Power,” Cruz said. “It is so attractive, it is sort of like conservatives saying, ‘Wait, if we have government, we have power. We can ban the media.’ Let me tell you what will happen. Going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat wins again, wins the White House. They will silence us, they will use this power and they will use it ruthlessly.”
The Kimmel controversy is over a monologue in which he said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”
