Republican Ted Cruz compares FCC chair to mob boss for threats against broadcasters after Kimmel case

WASHINGTON - US Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican who leads oversight of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), joined Democrats on Sept 19 in criticising FCC chair

Brendan Carr’s recent threats against Disney and local broadcasters

for airing Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The conservative senator from Texas, one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, said Mr Carr’s threat to fine broadcasters or pull their licences over the content of their shows was dangerous.

“I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas,” Mr Cruz said, evoking the Martin Scorsese gangster movie. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it’.”

The senator’s remarks are a rare example of a prominent member of US President Donald Trump’s own party publicly criticising the actions of the administration, highlighting the deep concerns over free-speech rights and Mr Trump’s threatened crackdowns.

Kimmel suspension follows Carr’s threats

ABC, the television network owned by Disney, suspended Kimmel’s late-night talk show after Mr Carr threatened investigations and regulatory action against licensed broadcasters who aired Kimmel. The owners of dozens of local TV stations affiliated with ABC said they would no longer carry the show. Mr Trump, who appointed Mr Carr, has cheered the decision.

The suspension followed Kimmel’s opening monologue on the Sept 15 show when he discussed

the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk

, a friend and political ally of the president. Conservative activists were angered by Kimmel’s comments that they were using the assassination to score “political points" and his suggestion that the killer may also have been a conservative. Kimmel also joked about how Mr Trump responded to the killing.

Prominent Democrats and civil rights groups

condemned the Trump administration’s pressure to punish Kimmel

and others who speak negatively of the president.

Mr Cruz, chair of the Senate’s commerce oversight committee, joined the criticism on the Sept 19 episode of his podcast, saying Mr Carr’s comments were “dangerous as hell”.

The senator, a former constitutional lawyer, then adopted a broad mafioso accent to quote Mr Carr’s comments about broadcasters this week: “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who infrequently agrees with Mr Cruz, has called on Mr Carr to resign or for Mr Trump to fire him.

Mr Schumer called Mr Carr “one of the single greatest threats to free speech America has ever known”. Some Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Sept 19 asked the FCC’s inspector general to investigate Mr Carr’s actions and comments.

Mr Carr and the FCC did not respond to requests for comment, but Mr Carr said earlier this week he is “not going anywhere” and vowed to continue his work taking on media firms and defending the “public interest”.

Trump celebrates comedian’s downfall

Mr Trump, a former successful TV host himself, spoke several times during a state visit to Britain this week to commend Kimmel’s suspension, calling the Los Angeles comedian untalented and denouncing him for saying “a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk”. 

In the Sept 15 monologue, Kimmel, who frequently lampoons Mr Trump, also mocked the president for turning a question about his grief for Mr Kirk into a cheerful promotion for his planned White House ballroom.

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend,” Kimmel said. “This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

Kimmel has not publicly commented since his suspension, and the future of his show remains unclear.

Mr Trump also complained to reporters as he flew back to the US that television networks “were 97 per cent against me” and only gave him bad publicity.

“I would think maybe their licence should be taken away,” Mr Trump said. Federal law prohibits the FCC from revoking a broadcaster’s licence for negative coverage or other speech disliked by the government.

Mr Cruz said on his podcast that he had been mocked by Kimmel on air “so many times I cannot count” and that he hated Kimmel’s comments about Mr Kirk. He said he was thrilled that Kimmel’s show had gone dark, but not that it resulted from government pressure.

“We shouldn’t be threatening government power to force him off air,” Mr Cruz said. “It might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” REUTERS