Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr Is Weaponizing the Airwaves to Enforce Conservative Control

Brendan Carr’s rise to Federal Communications Commission chair in November 2024 marked a turning point for the agency — and for American media itself. A longtime FCC commissioner and contributor to the authoritarian Project 2025 blueprint, Carr has wielded the FCC’s regulatory powers as blunt instruments to enforce a conservative agenda and intimidate media outlets.

Carr’s tactics include threatening broadcasters over equal-time rules and “news distortion” allegations. He has controversially applied these rules to programs as varied as 60 Minutes, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The View, signaling a readiness to police content based on political leanings. Carr’s threats to ABC affiliates airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! were so aggressive that NPR reported him saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” This is not about fairness — it’s about bullying media companies into preemptive self-censorship.

Carr has also targeted public media, pushing to defund PBS and NPR. In January 2025, he ordered an FCC investigation into whether these taxpayer-funded outlets violated laws by airing what he called commercial advertisements. He openly questioned why Congress should continue funding public media at all. His campaign succeeded when Congress rescinded $1.1 billion in funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in July 2025, striking a major blow to independent journalism.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at major media companies have become another target. Carr launched investigations into NBCUniversal, Comcast, the Walt Disney Company, and ABC over their DEI initiatives — calling them “odious” and threatening to block mergers involving companies with such policies. These moves aim to roll back progress on representation and inclusion in media, under the guise of “free speech” and “equality.”

Meanwhile, Carr has empowered local broadcasters at the expense of national networks. His FCC approved massive media mergers like Nexstar–Tegna, creating giants that reach 80 percent of U.S. households. He also pushed to let local stations preempt network programming without penalty, effectively giving local broadcasters veto power over content. Critics warn this is a backdoor for censorship, using local affiliates to pressure networks to drop shows that don’t align with the administration’s views.

Even within the FCC, dissenting voices like Commissioner Anna Gomez have condemned Carr’s approach as bullying and censorship disguised as regulation. Ari Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression described the Carr FCC as weaponizing “whatever regulatory tools it has laying around to punish speech” the Trump administration opposes.

Brendan Carr’s FCC is not just regulating media — it is reshaping it to fit an authoritarian vision that punishes dissent, defunds independent voices, and consolidates conservative control. This is a direct assault on democratic discourse and media freedom, with consequences that could last long after the Trump era ends. We all need to pay attention — because the airwaves belong to the public, not to political bullies.