CSPAN - Sens. Blumenthal & Warren on First Amendment Under FCC

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Sept. 29, 2025 23:16-01:23 - CSPAN

02:06:55

Sens. Blumenthal & Warren on First Amendment Under FCC

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elizabeth warren

sen/d 14:47

jamie raskin

rep/d 12:57

richard blumenthal

sen/d 24:06

Appearances

amy klobuchar

sen/d 03:32

becca balint

rep/d 04:23

edward markey

sen/d 04:39

hank johnson

rep/d 01:38

mary gay scanlon

rep/d 03:16

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brendan carr

00:13

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Speaker	Time	Text
Engagement Under Pressure 00:05:27
brendan carr ▲ ● ▼		And so, you know, bring to us all the permitting and other challenges that you see.
		And thankfully, you know, with you at the helm here, there's new leadership here that's going to be very responsive to all of that.
		And we've got a great working relationship.
		And so I'm looking forward to the time to come here.
unidentified		Well, thank you, Chairman.
		And I think it's important for engagement because you're exactly right.
		Washington sometimes is a place that thinks they can operate, thinks it can operate in a vacuum.
		And that's the worst case scenario for us to be able to get out, and I commend you for doing that, to get out into the rest of the country to see what's happening on the ground, to be there to see it firsthand.
		But the people in this room do it each and every day.
		So I encourage their participation, their engagement, and look forward to continuing to work with you.
		So please help me thank Chairman Carr for his incredible work this morning, opportunity to be with us today, and look forward to our continued engagement over the coming years.
		So, Chairman Carr, thank you for being here.
		Thanks, buddy.
		Appreciate it.
		Good to see you.
		On Capitol Hill, Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren held a discussion on Trump administration FCC threats against ABC following on-air comments from late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.
		During the nearly two-hour meeting, several panelists, including the lone Democrat on the FCC, weighed in on recent developments.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Welcome, everyone.
		So pleased you're here and grateful.
		And I am thankful as well to Senator Warren for hosting this spotlight forum with me and the really excellent witnesses that we have with us and a number of our colleagues will be joining us.
		Let me just come right to the point.
		We began working on this hearing a number of weeks ago simply because we are in an unprecedented time of repression and intimidation.
		Nothing like it in my lifetime and likely nothing comparable to it in the history of the country.
		Using tools of legal and other kinds of power, this administration has sought to silence critics and suppress dissent.
		That overriding truth is the reason that we are here today.
		Now, last week we saw something really remarkable.
		The American people stepped forward and spoke truth to power.
		After Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air, consumers, viewers, advertisers, ordinary citizens rose up to condemn the government pressure that led to his removal and successfully advocated for his return.
		But make no mistake, there is no cause for complacency here.
		None, zero.
		And for anyone who might be tempted to say, well, didn't you get what you wanted?
		Why are you having this hearing?
		The simple answer is that the mounting threat to free speech and criticism, public dissent, and other kinds of First Amendment free expression is growing, not subsiding in this country.
		And this administration is using all of the tools at its disposal, criminal prosecution, which we saw last week, seemingly unfounded and unsupported,
		the silencing of reporters who would otherwise cover the Defense Department, taking them out of the White House as well as the Department of War, as the President would like to call it.
		The description of the press as the enemy of the people, the lawsuits against the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes.
		The plethora of action goes on.
		The effect is to chill free speech.
		And we are here today on one important aspect of that kind of repression, which is the use of the FCC to, in effect, silence broadcasters and everyone else under its jurisdiction.
		The simple truth is that over his nine months, the chair of that commission, Brendan Carr, has repeatedly initiated unprecedented, intrusive investigations against news broadcasters at the behest and probably the command of President Trump.
Restoring Jimmy Kimmel 00:03:35
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		President Trump was enraged about being fact-checked and satirized during the election.
		So on his very first day as chair, Mr. Carr opened proceedings that threatened the broadcast licenses of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
		Now, we don't have enough time here to go through all of the baseless threats and investigations against PBS, NPR, Comcast, Verizon, YouTube, KCBS, and others.
		In a vivid demonstration of how Trump's legal threats work in tandem with his administration's abuse of power, Mr. Carr held up CBS owner Paramount's merger until it settled his lawsuit for $16 million.
		And Mr. Carr also used the merger to install an Orwellian monitor at Paramount, holding out that wrong reporter could invite even more litigation from the FCC.
		President Trump was elated that Paramount coincidentally canceled Stephen Colbert days before the merger was approved.
		In fact, the morning after the cancellation, he posted on Truth Social that he, quote, absolutely loved that Colbert got fired, end quote.
		In that same post, Trump hinted, quote, I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.
		Three days later, Trump wrote, quote, Jimmy Kimmel is next to go.
		So when Kimmel made an offense, a remark that Trump found offensive, Mr. Carr seized on it with a well-crafted mobster tactic on a partisan broadcast podcast.
		Mr. Carr threatened ABC and its affiliate licenses, saying, quote, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
		These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
		So Chair Carr has claimed it's all a misunderstanding that he never made any threats, but he can't contain himself long enough to keep up the innocent act.
		He's already moved on threatening ABC's the view, again, an obsession of Donald Trump.
		Restoring Jimmy Kimmel is not the end of our fight.
		It's really only the beginning.
		The American people spoke truth to power.
		They can continue to do it, but only with the kind of leadership that we have to provide through the Congress, through your organizations and your advocacy, and through the kind of awareness that we need to create and sustain.
		President Trump's censorship threatens our democracy directly and immediately right now.
Courage Under Fire 00:04:16
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		It's not something on the horizon.
		It's here.
		Tyranny is an immediate, real, and present threat.
		And in newsrooms across the country, journalists are questioning whether reporting unfavorable news that is unfavorable to the president is worth the bullying and retribution.
		People across the country are wondering whether speaking out is worth the potential sacrifice.
		Corporate executives are wondering whether they will have the courage and their boards of directors to stand up to the president.
		Universities and law firms, also targets of bullying, are wondering whether we will speak up for them.
		And the answer is today, your courage and your advocacy.
		And it is, again, only the beginning of what we need to do.
		We're going to continue this fight.
		We're going to attract allies.
		We're going to defend the naysayers to Donald Trump's campaign of suppression and silencing dissent.
		Senator Warren.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
		And I really want to say publicly how much I appreciate Senator Blumenthal's long-term leadership in this area and how, since Donald Trump has become president again, he has really stepped up on these First Amendment issues and how important it is.
		So thank you and thank you for having us here today.
		I also want to say to all of you, thank you for being here.
		You're going to see a lot of us.
		It's going to look like tag team because there are a lot of different senators who come in at different times and we're trying to get as many people in.
		So thank you for being here and giving us a chance to hear from you and to ask you some questions.
		So I want to think back to a year ago right now.
		What was Donald Trump saying every single day?
		He said he would lower costs for American families on day one.
		After he got elected, the very first interview he gave, the reporter asked, why did you get elected?
		Why were you successful?
		And he said, because I promised to lower costs on day one.
		And now here we are, about 260 days into the Trump presidency, and the cost of groceries is up.
		The cost of housing is up.
		The cost of school shoes is up.
		Costs are up for families.
		Cost of health care is up.
		And the Republicans are driving it even higher.
		Now, that's bad news for the American people, but it's also really bad news for Donald Trump.
		So what is Donald Trump doing about it?
		Where is he putting his energy right now?
		And the answer is he is leading a corrupt and dangerous attack on freedom of speech and the free press in the hopes that no one will be able to talk about what's going on.
		How much information can he suppress?
		How much can he turn people in a different direction on what they talk about?
		So since the first day of his administration, Trump has abused the power of the Oval Office.
		He's used it to line his own pockets.
		He's used it to attack his enemies.
		He's used it to hand out favors to his billionaire buddies and his campaign donors.
		And now Trump seems to think that he can trample on the First Amendment and use the power of government to shape what Americans hear.
Bribery Statute Murkiness 00:08:48
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		First with CBS and Stephen Colbert, and now with ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, and as the chairman of this hearing, Senator Blumenthal noted, and too many other places to note.
		So a few weeks ago, Trump's Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, was unhappy with some of Jimmy Kimmel's remarks, and he said that companies airing Kimmel's show, quote, can find ways to take action on Mr. Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
		And then, in comments that we're all seeing that look like they're straight out of goodfellows, he adds, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
		Look, he did not have to wait long.
		Within hours, Disney, along with owners of dozens of ABC affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced they would suspend Kimmel's show, drawing praise from both Donald Trump and Chair Carr.
		Now, it's thanks to every single American who spoke out and who pushed back that Disney reversed its decision, and Kimmel's show was back on the air Monday, drawing the show's largest audience in a decade.
		Sinclair and Nexstar relented a few days later and brought Kimmel back too after the backlash had happened from viewers, from advertisers, and from community leaders.
		But why did this happen in the first place?
		And one reason might be that Disney and Nexstar and Sinclair each need something big from Donald Trump.
		Nexstar, the nation's largest owner of TV stations, needs the Trump administration to approve its proposed mega-merger with its competitor, Tegna.
		Now, Sinclair, the nation's second largest broadcaster, is also waiting on Trump to approve a broadcast deal.
		And Disney needs the Trump administration's go-ahead to merge with Fubo.
		So there was, was there a quid pro quo deal here?
		Nexstar and Sinclair tried to curry favor with Donald Trump by shutting down a comedian that Trump doesn't like in the hopes that they would get their big deals approved.
		Disney, Sinclair, and Nexstar have reversed course, at least for now.
		This isn't Trump's first attack on Americans' freedom of speech.
		You know, just a couple of months ago, Paramount was looking for the Trump administration's approval for a huge merger deal with Skydance.
		And what do you know?
		Suddenly, Paramount settles a bogus legal case with President Trump by funneling $16 million right into Trump's presidential library.
		According to Trump, SkyDance additionally promised to air up to $16 million worth of Trump-friendly ads on CBS.
		Two weeks later, CBS, which is owned by Paramount, cancels Stephen Colbert's show.
		And one week after that, after the cancellation, merger approved.
		Trump is not finished shaking down America's media companies.
		He's warned that other late-night comedians are next.
		And when Disney and ABC put Kimmel back on the air, Trump posted, quote, I think we're going to test ABC out on this.
		Let's see how we do.
		Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 million.
		This one sounds even more lucrative.
		Let's be clear.
		President Trump and Chairman Carr are wrong to threaten to censor journalists and comedians.
		They are wrong to trample on the First Amendment.
		They are wrong to imply that the government will use government power to make life miserable for those broadcasters or journalists or comedians who say things that they don't like.
		But media giants also bear some responsibility here.
		If they are bending the knee so they can get handouts from the government, they need to have a serious conversation with their lawyers.
		Any giant corporation planning to do favors for Trump in exchange for gifts from his administration should take a hard look at the federal bribery statutes, which bar anyone from, and I quote, corruptly giving anything of value to any public official to influence any public act.
		If big media giants get even bigger by censoring content that Donald Trump doesn't like, the American people lose.
		They can't watch their favorite comedian on their local TV station because Donald Trump said so.
		They're held captive by big corporate media monopolies that decide what they are and are not allowed to see.
		And then those monopolies that have wiped out competition can charge whatever they want to charge.
		Right now, Americans are paying attention.
		Three giant companies back down on censoring Kimmel in no small part because the American people stood up and said, no way.
		So what does that show the rest of us?
		It shows us there is power in raising our voices.
		And that is why Donald Trump and his lackeys are attacking the First Amendment.
		And it is why we have to fight back.
		Mr. Chairman, back to you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much, Senator Warren.
		And on your point about looking at the bribery statute, by virtue of a decision of the United States Supreme Court, Donald Trump has immunity for extortion.
		But heads of those companies do not have any immunity for violating the law.
		And I'm very glad you raised that point.
		Thank you.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		They are dealing with Donald Trump.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Especially if they're dealing with Donald Trump.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Exactly right.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		We've been joined by Ranking Member Raskin of the House.
		And I'm going to turn to you because I know your time may be limited.
		If you have any remarks you'd like to make at the outset.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Oh, gee, but I wasn't expecting that.
		Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
		So we haven't begun the formal questioning then.
		Is that right?
unidentified		Yes.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		So I'm not sure if it's from the witnesses.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
		Let me pick up on one thing Senator Warren just said then, which is very interesting to me, which is the line between bribery and extortion.
		When extortion applies, it's because there's a shakedown saying you must give me X if you want Y. Bribery is, I'll give you Y if you give me X, right?
		And I think Senator Warren's saying the lines are very murky when the president is using the FCC, which is an arm of the state, essentially to hold up someone's license or transfer of someone's license or someone's merger until he gets paid off for a personal lawsuit that he's brought against a broadcast company.
		It's clearly coercive and a shakedown, but if you've got a willing participant, I think it looks like bribery as well.
		I mean, it can be both coercion and bribery.
		Am I right about that, Senator Warren?
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		I really appreciate your raising this question.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		I've tried bribery and extortion, and it is a, in a sense, they overlap.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Your point is very well.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		But the point is, if you're walking the line between those two, you're in real trouble.
		The other side of the line is not, oh, we're all home free.
		The only question is exactly who is breaking the law here.
		Because trading the favors that belong to the people of the United States, like broadcast licenses, in return, either for an offer from a big corporation, an offer to settle, an offer of $16 million, or as a threat that you'll be in real trouble if you don't do it.
President's Power Over Media 00:04:43
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Either one of those is a violation of the law.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		And it might indeed be both of them.
		Well, no, I appreciate very much your elucidating both the distinction and the proximity of those two offenses.
		From the standpoint of the people, of course, it all begins to look like a corporate state.
		That is, money is changing hands at the highest levels.
		But suddenly the president of the United States is the person who gets to appoint who's going to be a comedian on TV and who's not going to be a comedian, and who's going to have a broadcast license and who's not going to have a broadcast license.
		And so I noted that the other day President Trump described the Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City, Mr. Mamdani, as a communist.
		And I thought that was curious because all of Donald Trump's favorite politicians in the world are communists.
		For example, Kim Jong-un, the Stalinist dictator of North Korea, whom he loves and he's traded, I think, dozens of love letters with.
		Vladimir Putin, who was the head of the KGB, who said the greatest single catastrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union.
		And the commissars of Russia and oligarchs of Russia, Donald Trump loves all of them.
		And then, of course, President Xi, who Donald Trump has praised numerous times as brilliant, a genius, so smart, and so on.
		So I don't know whether we describe the new emerging governmental form under Donald Trump as a form of state socialism or state capitalism.
		But in any event, it's got a lot more to do with Vladimir Putin and Russia and North Korea and China than it has to do with American free democracy.
		And I think he's mad at Mamdani because Mamdani's ideas are all about, you know, they sound to me like FDR style ideas.
		We're going to get free bus rides for kids to school and groceries and so on.
		But from the standpoint of free speech, it's just a very dangerous moment for our country when the president thinks he can arrogate to himself the right to decide who gets to speak in public.
		So, you know, this whole period has begun with a crackdown on the law firms, where the president issues executive orders where he says, Because I don't like somebody, something somebody did at your law firm, even if they're not the law firm anymore, nobody from your law firm can enter a federal building, including a federal courthouse.
		Nobody can get a federal contract, and nobody can get a federal job.
		Some of the law firms, amazingly to me, back down as if they didn't know what a blatant violation this was of due process, the right to counsel, the First Amendment, and so on.
		But the ones that have stood up against it, like Perkins Cooey and Wilmer Hill, have prevailed in court.
		But of course, you know, prevailing in court isn't everything if the federal government is still going to be on your case.
		And I think that's why some of these law firms have decided to capitulate.
		Then they went after the colleges and universities just blatantly violating academic freedom, saying because, you know, we don't like what we take to be your record on racism or anti-Semitism.
		Well, we're going to essentially take over your operation.
		We're going to decide college admissions for students.
		We're going to decide who's hired.
		We're going to decide on your curriculum.
		That, again, is a form of authoritarianism.
		It comes in, you know, different kinds of varieties, but that is how dictatorship operates.
		So where did Donald Trump get the idea?
		He could start to appoint who are the official comedians and who are the disapproved comedians in America.
		He thought he could do it because he was doing it with the law firms.
		He was doing it with the colleges, doing it with universities, and sending young people here on student visas home because he didn't like the op-eds that they wrote for their college paper or the rally that they went to, whatever.
		All of this is authoritarianism.
		So anyway, I'm really delighted that you've put this together, Chairman Blumenthal, and I'm delighted to hear what the witnesses have to say.
Regulatory Abuses and Media Freedom 00:14:55
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you so much.
		Thanks, Congressman Raskin.
		I'll introduce the witnesses now, and we'll hear from you.
		Commissioner Anna Gomez serves as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission.
		She was sworn in in September 2023 following tenures in several FCC staff leadership roles prior to her and telecommunications public service roles.
		Connor Gaffney is counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit group dedicated to defeating authoritarian threats and building resilient democratic institutions.
		His work focuses on securing expressive freedom through litigation and other advocacy.
		Robert Corn Revere is Chief Counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, FIRE, a prominent author and First Amendment attorney.
		Mr. Corn Revere served as chief counsel to former FCC Chairman James Quello and argued cases focused on free expression before the United States Supreme Court.
		Oliver Darcy is the founder and lead author of Status News, which delivers reporting and analysis on the news media, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley.
		Prior to founding status, Darcy was CNN's senior media reporter.
		We welcome all of you and thank you for being here.
		We've been joined by Congressman Johnson of Georgia.
		Thank you for being with us, and we'll hear from you first.
		Commissioner Gomez.
unidentified		Thank you.
		Good afternoon.
		I want to thank Senators Blumenthal and Warren for inviting me here today.
		I look forward to speaking with you and others present here today about the importance of defending the First Amendment.
		As you may know, earlier this year, I launched a First Amendment tour to fight back against this administration campaign of censorship and control.
		I did that after my own agency launched a series of retaliatory investigations targeting newsrooms' editorial decisions.
		Across 17 stops in D.C., California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Washington State, and New York, I have been focused on shining a light on ways in which this administration's actions have threatened freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
		The First Amendment has protected our fundamental right to speak freely and to hold power to account since 1791.
		It is foundational to our democracy.
		And today, I am here to tell you that the foundation is trembling after constant attacks from our own government.
		This administration seems intent on using its vast power to punish anyone who dares to speak up and disagree with its agenda.
		Broadcasters across the country are facing an impossible choice: comply with this administration's demands or risk a financially debilitating investigation and the threat of a license revocation.
		The power to revoke a broadcast license is being weaponized to punish stations that dare to report news in a way that this administration doesn't like.
		We've seen this FCC use frivolous news distortion complaints and the power to derail corporate mergers to pressure news entities to abandon their editorial independence and to scrap their diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
		The best example of this tactic is the approval of the Paramount Skydance merger.
		After a baseless lawsuit challenged CBS's use of standard editorial judgment in a 60-minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, Paramount opted for a payout instead of fighting the case in court, a case they would have won on the facts and on the law.
		The company also agreed to never before seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment.
		A government-sanctioned truth arbiter is now in place to field complaints about CBS's content and editorial decisions, which will only incentivize CBS to self-censor to ensure that their journalists do not draw the ire of this administration.
		Paramount's capitulation has emboldened those who believe the government can and should abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage.
		Sadly, that did not mark the end of this administration's affront to democratic principles.
		Just recently, we saw one of the most alarming attacks on the First Amendment in recent memory.
		First, an ABC reporter was told his coverage amounted to hate speech and that he should be prosecuted simply for doing his job.
		Then the FCC threatened to go after the same network, seizing on the comments of a late-night comedian as a pretext to punish speech it disliked.
		That led to a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by Disney that put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger.
		This was no simple business decision.
		It was an act of clear government intimidation.
		It is important to understand that the FCC does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police lawful content or to punish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes.
		And if it were to take the unprecedented step of trying to revoke broadcast licenses, which are held by local stations rather than national networks, it would run headlong into the First Amendment.
		But even the threat of revoking a license is no small matter.
		It poses an existential risk to a broadcaster.
		Ultimately, after days of bipartisan pushback against this weaponization of government power, Disney backed off.
		However, for several days, the corporate behemoths who own large swaths of local stations across the country did not.
		That's because these billion-dollar media companies have business before the FCC.
		They are pushing the FCC to reduce regulatory guardrails so they can grow even bigger.
		That has left local stations trapped in the middle as these massive companies impose their will and their values upon local communities.
		This encapsulates the danger of allowing vast and unfettered media consolidation.
		With an upcoming vote tomorrow during our monthly meeting, the FCC is gearing up to make major changes that will drastically alter the media ecosystem and the number of voices that are part of it.
		That will do nothing to help the small, independent, and local broadcast stations that are at risk of closing shop.
		The FCC has a duty to ensure our media system serves the public, not billion-dollar corporations.
		Not to mention, this form of media consolidation will further push independent local newsrooms to answer to corporate masters who are already under political pressure from this administration.
		The FCC won't need to threaten to investigate individual stations.
		Journalists and comedians won't need to be censored directly.
		They'll censor themselves to avoid conflict with regulators or risk losing government favor.
		The result will be a chilling effect on coverage, fewer jobs, and less diversity of viewpoints.
		In the end, this administration's effort has never been about preserving diversity of voices.
		It's about narrowing them.
		Take, for example, the successful campaign to defund public media.
		After months of baseless attacks, public media is facing an existential threat.
		So while one set of outlets is defunded, potentially stripped of their licenses, or publicly admonished, others are quietly promoted and cleared of regulatory obstacles.
		Let me be clear.
		The government does not have a role in reducing bias or ensuring a balance of opinions.
		But to this administration, that has never been the goal.
		Instead, they seek to engineer a media environment that echoes the government's worldview.
		That is not viewpoint diversity.
		It is viewpoint control.
		And if we allow the government to decide which voices survive and which ones are silenced, we lose the very foundation of a free press and with it the democratic principles it seeks to protect.
		Thank you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much, Commissioner Gomez.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Connor Grafney.
unidentified		Thank you, Chairman Blumenthal, Senator Warren, Congressman Raskin, and Congressman Johnson.
		Thank you for inviting me to speak about this important and timely matter.
		I serve as counsel at Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization with the mission of preventing the United States from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.
		Our work combats abuses of executive power and defends the civil society institutions that are critical to a healthy, informed, and participatory democracy.
		We therefore view the troubling pattern of abuses of power at the FCC as a particularly urgent matter.
		Since assuming the position of chairman in January, Commissioner Brendan Carr has exercised the FCC's considerable regulatory powers in deeply troubling and possibly illegal ways.
		He has used the FCC to target perceived political opponents and silence coverage that's critical of the administration.
		These actions are an attack on the independence of the media, which is an essential institution for a healthy democracy.
		These actions are also corrupt, enriching the president and entrenching power in his administration.
		In my remarks today, I want to present insights from experts who study authoritarian behavior to contextualize the FCC's recent actions within global anti-democratic trends.
		The regulatory abuses at the FCC should alarm those concerned for the future of our democracy.
		Congress established the FCC as an independent agency whose regulatory power is to be exercised in the public interest, free from political interference.
		And while Congress granted the FCC broad powers, it prohibited the agency from acting as a censor or from interfering with free speech.
		Additionally, the First Amendment prohibits the FCC from retaliating on the basis of speech or from taking other actions that abridge the expressive, associative, and journalistic freedoms protected by that amendment.
		Despite these limits, though, Chairman Carr has wielded the FCC's authorities in creative and unprecedented ways.
		He has reinstated formal complaints that the agency had previously dismissed.
		He has publicly threatened to investigate broadcasters because of their coverage of the administration.
		He has also exploited the FCC's merger review authority to pressure media companies to settle lawsuits filed by the president and to accept changes in their journalistic practices.
		And of course, most recently, Chairman Carr succeeded in temporarily taking late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air over comments that Kimmel had made related to the killing of Charlie Kirk.
		All of these actions target entities that the President or his advisors have publicly attacked.
		They raise serious questions under both the First Amendment and the Communications Act.
		But they also raise serious concerns about the trajectory of our democracy.
		The abuses of the FCC's authority are not merely ad hoc responses to unfavorable press coverage.
		Rather, they follow a strategy employed by aspiring autocrats in Hungary, Poland, and other de-democratizing societies.
		This so-called Hungry model involves a nominally independent media regulator who's in fact aligned with the ruling party.
		This regulator exerts administrative pressure on independent media to destabilize their business models and suppress critical coverage.
		This is disturbingly similar to what we are seeing play out at the FCC.
		The goal of this strategy is to eliminate independent media, which both enables robust public discourse and serves as a check on the government.
		This is part of a broader pattern of attacking civil society.
		By suppressing opposition speech and closing the civic space that enables citizens to organize, this strategy consolidates power around the autocratic figure or the ruling party.
		Chairman Carr's abuses also represent a concerning form of corruption.
		Political scientists distinguish between enriching corruption, which funnels resources to public officials, and entrenching corruption, which uses state power to reduce accountability, subvert institutional checks, and ultimately establish a non-competitive political system.
		The exchange of regulatory favors for compliance in the media falls into the entrenching category of corruption, as it furthers the president's control over an independent power-checking institution in our democracy.
		A free, robust, and diverse press is critical to democratic society.
		The FCC was designed as an independent agency to be free of political capture.
		But Chairman Carr has shown how this power and trust can be abused and how easily it can be wielded to undermine our democracy.
		Chairman Carr has also made it clear that he intends to continue to go after speech he doesn't like.
		But he also has issued an invitation declaring that if people don't like it, they can go to Congress.
		I'm happy to be before members of Congress today, and I look forward to your questions.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks so much, Mr. Kaffney.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Corn-Revere.
unidentified		Thank you, Senator.
		My name is Robert Corn-Revere, and I'm Chief Counsel for FHIR, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
		FHIR is a nonprofit and importantly, nonpartisan foundation that for the past 26 years has defended the law of free expression and promoted a culture of free speech.
		I was invited here today not to represent or to describe the official position of my organization, but to speak about current controversies involving the Federal Communications Commission based on my experience and expertise.
		I'm a First Amendment litigator with more than four decades of experience working on matters defending freedom of expression, including cases involving jawboning by government officials.
		A number of my cases have involved challenges to congressional and FCC authority to restrict content on regulated media.
		I have also served as an FCC official as chief counsel to former FCC Chairman James H. Quello.
		Also, I've taught First Amendment and communications law at the Catholic Universities of America School of Law and have published widely in this field, including a three-volume treatise on communications law.
Fcc's New Assertiveness 00:05:42
unidentified		Based on my experience, I'll try to put some of the current developments at the FCC into a proper legal and historical perspective.
		Over the past 10 months, we have witnessed extraordinary formal and informal assertions of power over the broadcast media and the national broadcast networks.
		Of course, the most recent example involved Chairman Brendan Carr's crude threat directed at Disney and its ABC network to take action on Kimmel or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
		The ultimatum stemmed from a monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live, in which the late night hosts joked about the possible motives of Charlie Kirk's assassin.
		Chairman Carr's call to take action was followed immediately by ABC's announcement that it was suspending Kimmel's show indefinitely.
		Two major station group owners, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, also announced that their ABC-affiliated stations would not carry Jimmy Kimmel live because of what they saw as offensive remarks.
		Kimmel's show has since been restored to the air, first by the network and then by the station group owners.
		Now, this incident did not occur in a vacuum.
		Since being elevated to the FCC chairmanship, Carr has revived previously dismissed complaints against the ABC, CBS, and NBC networks for alleged programming violations, slow-rolled approval of a merger between Paramount Global, owner of CBS, and Skydance Media, which has since been granted after the promise of internal ombudsmen to police news bias complaints, publicly cheered the demise of the late show of Stephen Colbert on CBS,
		the cancellation of which just happened to coincide with the merger approval, and has publicly solicited news distortion complaints against network news programs he evidently perceives to be as critical of the president or his policies.
		Now, Carr has described his actions as business as usual at the FCC.
		He has said that broadcasters are licensed under the Communications Act to serve the public interest and that he is merely holding them to that commitment.
		He has pointed to FCC policies against news distortion and broadcast hoaxes and claimed the agency is obligated to act if it receives complaints.
		And he has asserted that he is merely enforcing policies crafted by his Democratic predecessors, essentially arguing that if authority has been abused in the past, why shouldn't he do the same?
		None of this behavior is normal, authorized by the Communications Act, or permitted by the First Amendment.
		Just last term, the Supreme Court unanimously reaffirmed that the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment.
		This constitutional rule applies regardless of any authority Chairman Carr may believe the FCC has over broadcast programming.
		But this characterization of the FCC's authority is distorted and overstated.
		Congress designed the FCC to be an independent, bipartisan, and to operate within constitutional bounds.
		Section 326 of the Communications Act expressly withholds from government the power to interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.
		The law denies to the FCC the power of censorship as well as the ability to promulgate any regulation or condition that interferes with the freedom of speech.
		And the Supreme Court has long made clear that the public interest standard necessarily invites reference to First Amendment principles and that the First Amendment must inform and give shape to the manner in which Congress exercises its regulatory power in this area.
		The only issue about which Chairman Carr has a point is when he claims that FCC authority over broadcast programming has been abused in the past by Democratic commissioners.
		That's true.
		It is a fact that FCC commissioners of both parties have overstepped in this regard, although never to this extent.
		I've spent a fair amount of my career both calling this out and opposing such actions in court.
		But regardless of whether jawboning is accomplished with the erudite sophistication of Newton Minnow's 1961 vast wasteland speech to the National Association of Broadcasters or Brendan Carr's clumsy godfather impression telling ABC we can do this the easy way or the hard way, it's still improper and unconstitutional.
		Chairman Carr used to at least pay lip service to the idea that the FCC must respect the First Amendment, correctly observing that to inject partisan politics into our licensing process would be a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC's status as an independent agency.
		He also used to say that the FCC cannot serve as the nation's speech police.
		As chairman, however, he no longer makes such statements, nor does he follow the principles he once espoused.
		Shortly after Chairman Carr was named to his position, I published an open letter asking him to show restraint in his use of power.
Challenging Media Vulnerabilities 00:15:54
unidentified		In a plea for institutional modesty, I reminded Chairman Carr of his numerous statements that once earned him the title Free Speech Warrior and asked that he put those principles into practice.
		Now, I understand political reality, so I never expected him to heed my unsolicited advice.
		But I had no idea how far he would stray from the oath of office that he took to uphold and defend the law and the Constitution of the United States.
		With that, I welcome your questions.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks very much, Mr. Coroner Veer.
		Mr. Darcy.
		Thank you.
unidentified		Senators, Representatives, thank you for having me here today.
		My name is Oliver Darcy.
		I've spent a decade reporting on media and the information environment at Business Insider, then at CNN, where I spent the bulk of my career, and now as the founder of Status, an independent outlet that publishes a nightly newsletter focused on the urgent issues facing the media industry.
		In all my years reporting on this beat, I have never seen free speech and a free press come under such brazen assault.
		Ironically, the attacks today are coming from the President of the United States and his MA allies, the very same people who campaigned on promises to end so-called censorship, to legalize comedy, and to bring back free speech.
		Instead, nine months into this administration, fact-based reporting and even late-night jokes have become targets of an aggrieved president, with Trump wielding his office to bully critics into submission and chill their speech.
		The message he has sent is clear, cross me and pay the price.
		One weapon he has turned to has been a lawsuit.
		The general consensus of the legal community is that Trump's cases against the press lack merit.
		But merit isn't the point.
		These suits are designed to intimidate those who dare ask tough questions and seek to hold his administration accountable.
		This can be especially problematic for companies that have business before the federal government and do not wish to be the subject of Trump's ire, as was evident when Paramount settled the Trump 60 Minutes lawsuit for $16 million, despite the company having referred to itself as meritless.
		Unfortunately, that settlement, in addition to Disney's ABC News settlement, has emboldened Trump.
		More recently, he's filed lawsuits against the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
		The issue impacts companies as large as Paramount, but it also touches smaller independent publishers.
		At status, for example, we are now spending tens of thousands of dollars annually on defamation insurance simply to shield ourselves from threats of litigation, not only from the White House, but from other figures who might take a chapter out of Trump's autocratic playbook in an attempt to silence our voices.
		That protection is expensive and difficult to secure, but it is a necessity to survive in a hostile press climate that has taken hold in America today.
		Over the last nine months, as I've reported on the media in this turbulent moment, I've spoken with countless journalists and media executives across the country.
		The common theme I hear is fear.
		Reporters on the ground worry about whether the interests of billionaire or corporate owners will compromise the mission of their newsrooms.
		Executives, meanwhile, fear retaliation from a Trump administration.
		Everyone fears that the worst might be yet to come as Trump and his administration push the envelope further and further.
		The country, as of course, just witnessed a striking example demonstrating that Trump and his allies are willing to openly use their governmental powers against voices they seek to muzzle.
		Only two weeks ago, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wielded his authority in an attempt to punish late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who Trump has long targeted for being critical of him.
		Carr's Kimmel threats were not an anomaly, though.
		Since Trump tapped him to head the FCC, he has revived and launched a number of dubious investigations into media companies, all of which have alarmed former FCC commissioners I've spoken to, both Republicans and Democrats.
		Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is trying to force news organizations to sign an agreement that would prohibit reporters from publishing even unclassified information that they obtain without explicit government approval.
		And Trump's White House has seized control of the press pool while also punishing the Associated Press for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
		These are not only media issues.
		These are democracy issues.
		The chilling of speech is one of the first signs that a democracy is starting to decay.
		That is not hyperbole.
		Strong men thrive when speech is stifled, and that is precisely the environment Trump and his allies are working to create.
		Thank you for having me here today, and I look forward to your questions.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you very much.
		I'm going to call on Senator Warren first to ask some questions before I ask mine and then go to Congressman Raskin.
		We've been joined by Congressman Scanlon and Congressman Woman Matsui.
		Really, thank you for being here today.
		Running a little bit late, which just reflects the importance of the issues that bring us here today.
		And turn to you, Senator Warren.
		Thank you.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So, thank you all very much.
		Thank you for your testimony.
		It's very valuable.
		I want to focus, though, for just a minute on these big media companies themselves.
		And let's count the events of just the past few weeks.
		CBS canceled Stephen Colbert, while its parent company, Paramount, wrote a $16 million check to Donald Trump's presidential library.
		Disney-owned ABC sent another $16 million to Trump's library.
		Later, they pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
		Next star and then Sinclair blocked Kimmel as well before a public outcry caused them to reverse their actions.
		There are six episodes suggesting that these media giants are bowing down to Donald Trump.
		And what do they all have in common?
		They have all been criticized by Trump and his federal communications chairman, Brendan Carr, and they all want the Trump administration to approve mergers that will make these media giants even more gigantic.
		Now, in this country, we have laws against bribery.
		We define bribery as someone intending to influence, quote, any official act, close quote, by corruptly giving a public official, quote, anything of value.
		So I just want to break that down for any giant corporations that are debating whether or not they should cozy up to Trump in return for regulatory favors.
		So, Commissioner Gomez, you have been a member of the FCC since 2023.
		You now serve alongside Chairman Carr.
		Is approving a mega-merger, an official act that the FCC can take?
unidentified		Yes, it is.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is.
		So, the official act is one half of the quid pro quo.
		Now, let's do the other half of the quid pro quo, the thing of value.
		Mr. Gaffney, you are an expert on free speech.
		Is it fair to say that removing comedians that criticize Donald Trump from the air would be a thing of value to President Trump and to Chairman Carr?
unidentified		Yes, it is.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		And why is that a thing of value?
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		It's not dollars.
unidentified		No, it's not.
		It perhaps is a little abstract, but I think no less real.
		And the value that silencing critical media coverage provides and the anticipatory obedience that this also buys is of political value.
		It both removes an important accountability mechanism that may be critical of this administration, and it also closes down civic space that allows political opposition to develop, to organize, and to form.
		And that's of real political value, and that's why aspiring authoritarians around the world all go after independent.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I'm going to go there in just a sec.
		But of the six actions we talk about, two of them are clearly for things of value, $16 million each.
		And the other four, you're saying, are at least of political value.
		And under the law, can things be of political value and still count under the statute?
unidentified		I'm not sure I can speak to whether or not there's criminal liability here, but it's certainly a thing of value.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Okay, certainly a thing of value.
		All right.
		Now, look, corruption is something we would expect to happen behind closed doors, right?
		People whisper about it.
		You try to keep it in the dark.
		Boy, not this time.
		Brendan Carr goes on a podcast and just straight up says that the company's airing Kimmel show can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
		And he told these companies, quote, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.
		So, Mr. Gaffney, you have spent years studying how autocratic governments communicate.
		I'm sure you've seen all kinds of corruption around the world.
		Have you ever heard of anything like this from an American FCC?
unidentified		No, this is truly unprecedented.
elizabeth warren ▲ ● ▼		Look, this is all scary.
		And it's easy to get stuck kind of in the sandstorm of chaos that the Trump administration stirs up every day.
		But here is one piece of good news that has come out in just the last few days, and that is public pressure works.
		The American people pushed back on these giant companies that are bending a knee to Trump and taking Kimmel off the air, and we won.
		But the Trump administration has not given up.
		It is still trying to pressure CEOs and censor its critics.
		And the dominance of these media giants is still a big problem.
		And this is a big part of why I think we have to stay in the fight.
		I just want to say again, I appreciate everyone coming here today.
		We need to call out the Trump administration, but we need to call out the media companies that bend a knee and preemptively censor the very people that they provide the platforms for.
		Why?
		So that they can get benefits to get even bigger and have even more power in the communications space.
		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Senator Warren.
		We need to call out the media companies.
		We also need to call out the law firms that bend the knee to President Trump, even before he makes a demand on them.
		We need to call out the universities.
		We need to call out anyone and everyone in positions of power that, in effect, obey in advance.
		The first rule of Tim Snyder's book on tyranny is: do not obey in advance.
		And I want to pay tribute to the naysayers among the law firms, among the universities, who are holding firm.
		And we need to hold accountable those big media companies who are making plenty of money without bending the knee.
		But I want to just make the point that looking at this situation as one of a quid pro quo implies that the administration is administering the law in a normal way.
		This is not normal.
		This is the building inspector who says to the restaurant owner, nice little restaurant you got there.
		It could burn down if you don't make payments to me.
		And as the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, I prosecuted mob cases, and what we are seeing here is typical mobster tactics That involve pressure on these institutions.
		Not that we should be overly sympathetic to their bending the knee, but we need to recognize that it is not normal.
		And in fact, it is contrary to what Chairman Carr himself viewed as what was normal.
		And I want to show you what he said.
		The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest.
		There are rules here.
		There are laws that are being violated as we speak.
		And there are rights that are being abridged.
		But I view the problem as one of how to enforce those rights in real time so that they are protected.
		Because people can go to court, institutions can try to enforce their rights, but it has a cost.
		So let me begin with you, Mr. Darcy, because you have reported on many of these instances of violation of rights.
		What are the practical obstacles to enforcing those rights, even when they are abridged?
		And I'm going to ask you the same question, Commissioner Gomez, from your vantage point.
unidentified		I think the challenge for media organizations right now, when you ask how do they enforce their rights while under these threats, is that they are extremely vulnerable in this moment.
		They are, you have to understand that the media organizations, let's take Paramount, for example, are trying to compete against much larger companies, the big tech giants, which we haven't really spoken about.
		But you think about tech buying up sports rights, which is the lifeblood of these media companies, Apple, Amazon, and so on and so forth.
		And so a company like Paramount is actually a sinking ship.
		And so they need, they feel they need to merge to get bigger and bigger to be able to compete against an Amazon or Netflix or an Apple.
		And so when they have a deal on the table and they're already a sinking ship, and that deal, by the way, took a long time to get just ironed out, they don't probably feel that they have a year or two or whatever it's going to take to go to court to win.
		And then the other thing is, obviously, is whether their suitor, Larry Ellison, David Ellison, wanted to wait a year or two or would they have gone and bought another media company unless they're trying to perhaps or they're preparing a bid for Warner Brother Discovery.
FCC's Threats Over Media Deals 00:15:27
unidentified		So I think time is of the essence with these media companies and part of the issue is they don't feel they have the time to spend tied up in court when they're trying to get these deals done.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Commissioner Gomez?
unidentified		The thing is, the threats are the point, not the ultimate outcome.
		Because many of the actions that you're seeing at the FCC, if they were reviewable in court, would be reversed in court because they're clear violations of the First Amendment.
		But initiating an enforcement action is not appealable.
		Refusing to act on a transaction, a merger, is not appealable unless you can get some kind of interlocutory appeal.
		So it is the threat and the desire to get an outcome without actually having to reach a final decision that is the point in what the FCC is doing.
		The commitments that Paramount made to eliminate all its diversity and inclusion policies and to install the truth arbiter at Paramount were voluntary.
		Voluntary.
		I'm using air quotes to say that.
		They were not a condition of the approval of the FCC's transaction.
		Why?
		Because that would make it appealable.
		So by committing, they are capitulating without even having the right to push back.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Mr. Kaffney, you've written about a range of issues, and you've worked on those issues relating to the weaponization of federal agencies and abuses of executive power in the Trump administration.
		I wonder how this weaponization of the FCC fits into that pattern and how it fits into the pattern of authoritarian rule in other countries.
unidentified		Thank you, Senator.
		Yes, the weaponization of the FCC is part of a broader pattern that we are seeing from this administration of weaponizing various aspects of government power to go after civil society.
		So we have the instance of the universities, law firms being targeted, the media now with the FCC, and perhaps NGOs to come.
		What all of these entities share in common is they make a part of civil society, and civil society really is democracy's guardrails for two key reasons that I mentioned earlier.
		One, they hold both public and private power to account.
		They're an important check on the exercise of power.
		And two, they create a civic space that allows political opposition to develop.
		They are really kind of like the sinews of democracy where democratic action occurs, where citizens can communicate with one another, identify common interests, and start to organize and develop political advocacy.
		Those all happen within these civic society institutions.
		When government represses them, eliminates them, or worse, only allows civil society that is pro-government to exist, then you've reduced the ability for political competition to occur.
		And that is a long step down the road towards authoritarianism.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		I have a ton more questions, but my five minutes is over, and I want to defer to my wonderful colleagues who've joined Congressman Raskin.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Blumenthal.
		Thank you all for excellent testimony.
		Let's start with this.
		We can do it the hard way or we can do it the easy way, said Chairman Carr with respect to Jimmy Kimmel.
		Commissioner Gomez, what's the easy way and what's the hard way?
unidentified		I have to admit, I'm not sure what that means.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Mr. Gaffney, what did you take that to mean?
unidentified		Well, I think it is certainly a threat, as you were saying earlier.
		This is a clear communication of the actions the FCC will take.
		Yeah.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		So the easy way is you back down now, knowing we don't like that guy, get rid of him, and you make that private action, or the FCC will formally coerce you to do it.
		Is that right?
		Yes.
		So do you have any doubt in your mind, Mr. Corner Very, that either way, that is government coercion and intimidation of a private actor such that you have state action in a First Amendment sense?
unidentified		It's a textbook example of that kind of coercion as it's a godfather offer.
		Exactly.
		And it's precisely what the Supreme Court was talking about last year in NRA versus Volo.
		It's that kind of vaguish threat of some kind of unfortunate consequences.
		And as Commissioner Gomez was saying, it isn't, it doesn't form a final action of the Commission that you can actually challenge, but rather the threat is the point.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		So they'd rather make it an easy way because there's no footprints there, basically.
		You can't appeal it.
		But the hard way, they said, we'll make sure you do it the easy way by threatening to do it the hard way, which we will follow through on if you don't do it the easy way.
		Mr. Gaffney, you distinguish between enriching corruption and entrenching corruption, that is, money corruption on the one hand, or just entrenching a particular political ideological viewpoint in the bureaucracy.
		But of course, you don't have to choose.
		I think you were invoking this as an example of entrenching corruption.
		But Donald Trump has made sure, in his inimitable way, he had a little enriching corruption at the same time, right?
unidentified		Yes, exactly.
unidentified		The Paramount Skydance merger really is a perfect illustration of both of these forms of corruption.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Spell it out, if you would, quickly.
unidentified		Sure.
unidentified		The enriching corruption would, of course, be the use of the FCC's power to extract a settlement.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		The $16 million that he pocketed, okay, and the entrenching corruption.
unidentified		Are the concessions at New Paramount to install a media monitor, a bias monitor, and to agree to whatever the FCC views as the proper balance of political and ideological viewpoints in their content?
unidentified		That's the entrenching corruption.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Commissioner Gomez, back to you.
		So you've lived through now not just this onslaught against free speech, but before that, the administrative shakedown against the FCC, like the other federal commissions and boards, the FCC has undergone Trump's unitary executive purge,
		where they're insisting basically the president gets to appoint everybody so the Democratic and the independent members can take a walk.
		So he's got unilateral control over the agency, and then he's going to use that for authoritarian control over speech and society.
		And I wonder if you would discuss the intersection of these two different attacks on our constitutional system.
unidentified		Yes.
		Congress created the FCC to be an independent agency for a very good reason.
		It was concerned that if it put the authority over the broadcast medium, which at the time was radio, under the control of one person and one party, it would be subject to the whims of that one person.
		So it created a multi-member expert body to regulate communication.
		It was very important that it do so.
		And we are seeing now the effects of taking that independence away from the FCC because we are now subject to the whims of one person and we are being weaponized to make broadcasters come together.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		And so it's operating in this dictatorial fashion under the unitary executive.
		I got one final question, and it's for whoever thinks they can best answer it.
		A lot of these so-called settlements after these coercive governmental actions involve the placement of a so-called truth arbiter, a minder, someone like an in-house censor at the private broadcast entity.
		And I'm wondering: one, is there any precedent for this in the history of our country or the FCC?
		Two, how is this working out?
		Who appoints these people?
		Who pays these people?
		And what has the effect been on speech, if any of you have looked at this?
		Commissioner Gomez, did you?
unidentified		Sure.
		So, first, the Truth Monitor is appointed by Paramount to report directly to the President of Paramount.
		Second, it is unprecedented that the FCC forces something like this on a broadcasting agency.
		There was an ombudsperson that Comcast agreed to appoint when it bought a media company.
		That Ombudsman Jobs was to make sure that the corporation did not interfere with the news editorial decisions of the broadcast stations.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		And the job of the truth censor is what?
		To make sure that the coverage is not anti-Trump?
		Is that?
unidentified		It is to field complaints about content within CBS and media bias.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		So who is this person?
unidentified		I can't remember who they appointed.
unidentified		They appointed someone that is within the circle of the USA.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Presumably they're politically correct within the parameters of MAGA World.
unidentified		Yes.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		And that person is paid by Paramount to be there to just oversee their content.
		And just can anybody else just tell me what you think about this?
		I don't know, Mr. Darcy, if you would.
unidentified		Yeah, I mean, I've talked to people inside CBS News, and it's part of my reporting, and I think there's an undeniable chilling effect.
		This person that they've appointed is someone who advocated for Donald Trump's election.
		He's from a conservative think tank.
		He's very pro-MAGA.
		And now, if you're a CBS News journalist and a complaint is filed by anyone, whether inside or outside the organization, this man is going to be reviewing that complaint.
		And so you can imagine if you are a CBS journalist and you are doing hard-hitting reporting on this administration and a complaint is filed, your work will now be reviewed by a pro-MAGA ombudsman that reports not to anywhere in your field of chain, but up to the executives at Paramount.
		And so that creates an undeniable chilling effect whether there's a review or not, because that's how your work is going to be judged.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		I yield back.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks a lot, Congressman Raskin, Congressman Johnson.
hank johnson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, for convening us together for this hearing today.
		And I want to thank the witnesses for your bravery and your work and for your testimony today.
		And this hearing is pretty much about Donald Trump's move to exert authority and control over the Fourth Estate.
		And the Fourth Estate is basically the profession of journalism in this country.
		My question, my first question is this.
		What is the significance of the independence of the Fourth Estate to the viability of American democracy?
		And what is the impact of corporate consolidation on the business side of the Fourth Estate?
		What impact does that have on the Fourth Estate's ability to remain independent?
		And I'll start with you, Mr. Darcy.
unidentified		Yeah, I think obviously a free press is vital to a functioning democracy.
		And the consolidation has threatened or made it more difficult for a free press to operate in that to get these deals across the finish line, a lot of these major companies that own news organizations need the government's approval.
		And so as we've seen, when you have a situation that comes up with Jimmy Kimmel and Nexstar needs government approval to merge with Tegna or Disney needs government approval to do a deal with the NFL or FUBO, they are to some extent at the mercy of who's operating the government.
		And right now that's Donald Trump.
		And so I think that has certainly changed the way the press reports on the government.
		And I think that outside even the consolidation, when you have billionaires owning major news organizations like Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post or Patrick Sun Xiong at the Los Angeles Times, those businessmen also have a lot of work before the government.
		And so you can imagine that they might want their news organizations to report on this administration in a certain way or be less combative because doing so could harm their larger business portfolios.
		Thank you.
hank johnson ▲ ● ▼		And what impact does that have on the viability of our democracy, Mr. Corn Revere?
unidentified		Having a free press and an independent press has always been an essential pillar of American democracy.
		What we see with this episode, though, is what has always been sort of a Fausian bargain with having the federal government control over broadcasting through the licensing process.
		That's always been subject to the danger that it could be manipulated.
		And it's why the Supreme Court has said that the FCC is required to walk a tightrope between First Amendment requirements and requirements of Section 326 of the Communications Act and the public interest obligations.
		And it's why the Court has always said those obligations have to be very limited.
		What we see here with this episode is a refusal to adhere to those norms of restraint and what, frankly, has been the legal requirement of restraint.
		And so what we're seeing is a test of how far those bounds can be stretched.
hank johnson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Mr. Connor.
		Excuse me, Mr. Gaffney.
		What can Congress do to confront this challenge to the fourth estate?
unidentified		Well, I think in the context of the FCC specifically, there are a few things Congress could do.
unidentified		Congress could strengthen the ability for judicial review of critical FCC actions, such as merger approvals, to make sure that they are, in fact, done in the public interest.
Congressional Guardrails Needed 00:15:37
unidentified		Congress created a similar scheme after Watergate when the DOJ had apparently given a plum settlement to the International Telephone and Telegraph Company.
		And after that company, it appears to have given a donation to the Republican National Convention.
		The TUNE Act is that law that now requires judicial review of antitrust settlements.
		So Congress could explore a similar mechanism here.
		The other thing I think Congress could do is legislate away certain regulatory powers that have shown themselves prone to abuse under this chairman and that do not serve a critical regulatory function.
		So I'm thinking of the news distortion policy in particular.
		I believe one study found that there had only been eight sustained findings of news distortion policy violation between 1969 and 2019.
		So not a often used regulatory power, but it has been the sort of principal cudgel that Chairman Carr has used to go out.
		Not the only one, of course, but one of them.
		So Congress could consider removing that power from the FCC.
hank johnson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		I hesitate to extend my time.
		It's been very gracious to be a part of this hearing, so I will yield back, but sorrowfully not able to ask you any questions, Commissioner Gomez.
		Thank you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Congressman Johnson.
		We've been joined by Congresswoman Ballant.
		Thank you for being here with apologies to Congresswoman Matsui and Scanlon.
		I'm going to ask Senator Flobuchar to go next.
		She's on a very tight schedule, and I hope you will understand.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Home court advantage, we take that.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		Everyone always believes senators will in the House when they say police.
		I just want to thank you all for leading this important forum.
		And when you think about what just happened the last few weeks, it really shed light, I think, for the entire public on something that we knew has been going on a while with this administration and the bullying and the limitations on what people say and the threats, which is very scary.
		I grew up in a journalism home.
		My dad was a first regular reporter with the AP for years.
		He actually, in 1960, Minnesota was the last state out on the presidential race, and my dad called it true story in Associated Press History.
		The guy in New York, when they called it in, he said to you three guys in Minnesota, I have two words for you: be right.
		And then he went on to be a columnist and the lead sports writer on the Vikings and had quite a career.
		And so I care a lot about this.
		And one of the things that I have done actually to try to look at how we keep the First Amendment protected is we need actual journalists.
		They need to be paid for their content.
		For years, Senator Kennedy and I have led the bill on the Journalism Competition Preservation Act to allow media to be able to negotiate for a fair price for their content from the tech companies, which they have not been getting, and it hurts journalists.
		And I guess I'd start.
		I know there have been some discussion about mergers and the like, but when I think about free speech, number one, we want to get Carr into the Commerce Committee for a hearing, and I hope that Senator Cruz will do that.
		Senator Cantwell has requested that.
		I serve on that committee.
		And then, number two, is how we keep journalism organizations strong.
		So I don't know if you want to ask the answer to that, Mr. Darcy, or anything about this idea that they're not getting paid for their content because it's getting oftentimes stolen online.
		And then that makes it difficult for us to move forward and have free speech if everything we're going to be is just whatever Donald Trump wants us to be on tech platforms that he owns or sponsors.
unidentified		Yeah, I think a big problem is that a lot of these news institutions, media institutions, are very vulnerable.
		And you want to understand why they're vulnerable.
		It's because they're facing unprecedented threats from big tech.
		And part of that has to do with not getting paid because their content is being gobbled up and stolen by AI giants.
		And so if they are paid for their work, that will make them stronger and in turn give them more leverage and be able to stand up against threats when they are present.
		But if they are extremely weak, as we are seeing right now, and there's a big bully in the schoolyard, it's very difficult to stand up to that bully.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		That's a very good answer.
		Anyone want to add anything?
		I just, I, you know, we can, if we don't look at the underlying causes of why this is going on, it makes it hard to move forward.
		And I we have not moved on this.
		So anyway.
		And I'm also, of course, there's a lot of other online newspapers.
		There's one in Minnesota called Min Post that's interesting, that was one of the first competitors.
		But supporting these organizations and allowing actual real journalism to operate has got to be part of our protection of the First Amendment, the way I look at it.
		Want to add anything, Mr. Gaffney, and then I will, or either of you, Ms. Gomez, thank you for your incredible service.
unidentified		Thank you.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		And then I'll be done.
unidentified		Kind of a related answer.
		The importance of local broadcasters and the journalists that work for local broadcasters.
		A lot of what you see on social media as news, and we know a lot of people are consuming their news through social media, is the result of the journalists that work for these local broadcasters, which is why it's so important that we preserve the diversity of viewpoints of these broadcasters as we see all this media consolidation.
amy klobuchar ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		And those local stories, we have news deserts now in our state where the newspaper shut down.
		The mayors told me that they're like in a little town.
		They're trying to put their stuff out on the cafe bulletin board or on Facebook, and then people don't know if it's real on Facebook, and she's trying to get support for a levy or something like that.
		We need these local papers, and then we, of course, need local broadcasters.
		So thank you very much.
		Thank you, all of you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Senator Klobuchar.
		I should have pointed out earlier that we invited Chairman Carr to be here so he could defend himself.
		Perhaps not surprisingly, he declined, and we've written him numerous times asking for answers and documents.
		He's dodged our questions and given us perfunctory, unresponsive answers.
		So I do hope that he will come before the relevant committees of the Congress, both in the House and the Senate.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		We might have to win Congress back and subpoena him.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Congressman Matzui.
unidentified		Thank you very much, Senator Blumenthal, for this forum, and I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
		You know, the pattern is really clear, suppressing dissent, intimidating journalists, and abusing power.
		President Trump and FCC Chair Carr are mounting a sustained assault on our First Amendment freedoms.
		Now, that's why I introduced the Broadcast Freedom and Independence Act to make crystal clear that no administration can punish broadcasters for their viewpoints.
		Now, Commissioner Gomez, good to see you again.
		How important is it that Congress passed my Broadcast Freedom and Independence Act to ensure that journalists, comedians, and all Americans are protected from governmental censorship?
		Thank you for that question.
		I think it's very clear that we need some guardrails on what the FCC can do because the weaponization of our authority in order to frame and mold how the media reports on this administration is clearly a problem and it frays our constitutional republic.
		Absolutely.
		Now, the proposed $6.2 billion NEXTAR Tegna merger would create the largest broadcasting company in the United States with control over 265 stations and reaching 80 percent of American households.
		Now in my home district of Sacramento alone, this would put both Fox 40 and ABC10 under the same owner.
		While I'm glad that NEXTAR finally reversed course after public outcry, it never should have pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air in the first place.
		Sacramentans and all Americans deserve media companies they can count on to defend these free speech and not cave to government censorship.
		Commissioner Gomez, what worries you the most about how this massive media merger could impact local news coverage, newsroom diversity, and the protection of free speech?
		Thank you for that question.
		What we saw with this episode was these billion-dollar corporate behemoths impose their values upon the communities that they are serving.
		And we see what happens with a loss of a diversity of viewpoints when what you get is the same Values and news stories being broadcast to all of the communities.
		I received a letter from a woman from Eugene, Oregon, who told me that there are five local stations that show the news in Eugene.
		Four of them are owned by one company, which means they are only getting the same thing that the national company is showing to those localities.
		That's not what our media rules are supposed to operate and how Congress told us to regulate in the public interest.
		Exactly.
		Now, the Nexstar techno-merger result, NEXTAR owning, I guess what I'm talking here is really about half, well, more than half, I think, when you lose, if they raise the cap, right, 39%, double it beyond that, right?
		So at the FCC, you can debate this, right, and insist that you can decide whether you want to lift the cap or not.
		Is that right?
		Thank you, Congresswoman.
		Actually, the 39% cap was set by statute.
		The FCC actually tried to have a higher limit, and Congress 20 years ago said, no, we're concerned about what this will do, so we are going to set it at 39%.
		So I do not believe that the FCC has authority to go beyond the 39% capital.
		So does that mean legislation?
		Is that what you're talking about now?
		Okay.
		Okay.
		Now, Mr. Coron Revere, you've litigated First Amendment cases for over four decades and previously served as FCC counsel.
		In your four decades of experience, have you ever seen FCC chairman publicly threaten to punish TV stations simply because he doesn't like what a host said on the air?
		This is new.
		Usually the threats happen behind closed doors or are more subtle.
		This is more brazen than usual.
		Okay.
		So what guidance does the Constitution give us when government officials try to silence critics by threatening their business licenses?
		Well, it is a very serious problem, and it's one of the reasons why it was so gratifying to see the Supreme Court just last term unanimously reaffirm a precedent saying that when government officials make threats, including vague threats of possible bad consequences if the target of that threat doesn't go along, and particularly when it comes to the speech of that target, that that's a clear violation of the First Amendment.
		Now, Mr. Gaffney, your work focuses on protecting democratic institutions from authoritarian overreach.
		The Jimmy Kimmel situation demonstrates how quickly the Trump FCC can abuse its power over our media networks and local stations to silence dissenting voices.
		Beyond broadcasting, what larger impacts do you see for everyday Americans when agencies like the FCC abandon independence to serve the whims of one man?
		I think there are a number of broad concerns with this sort of government action insofar as it represents a step towards authoritarianism or a page out of the authoritarian playbook.
		This is not simply about retaliating against a single instance of speech that the President and his allies disliked.
		This is part of a broader pattern of attacking important civil society institutions that play key roles in the functioning of our democracy.
		By silencing and sidelining those institutions, the administration is essentially entrenching its own power.
		Thank you very much, and I've overstayed my time.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		Congresswoman Scalin.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you, Senator Blumenthal, for convening this really important panel.
		I think many, if not most Americans are watching with alarm as we see this administration really attack the First Amendment and try to suppress all kinds of public speech with which it doesn't agree, whether that's coming from students on campuses or late-night comedians or through the courts, lawyers representing unpopular clients.
		And I mean, even last week, we saw the Secretary of Defense threaten to pull the press passes of any reporters who reported things happening in Defense World that were not pre-approved messaging from this administration.
		So I think all of this is really chilling.
		Mr. Gaffney, you mentioned in your testimony that we've seen the Hungary model or this type of conduct that we're seeing from the FCC happen in authoritarian regimes to suppress speech that the ruling authorities don't like.
		Can you talk about that a little bit?
unidentified		Yes, yeah.
		The Hungary model that I had referenced in my opening remarks is disturbingly similar to some of the tactics that we've seen employed by this FCC.
		And that model, again, takes a nominally independent state regulator that is in fact allied with the ruling figure or party and then uses its regulatory powers to, in particular, to target the business side of independent media.
		And the goal here is to both sideline independent media that might be critical of the government and create space for pro-governmental media consolidation and expansion.
		And the effect is the elimination of important power-checking institutions and these institutions that provide the opportunity for discourse and debate and dissent.
The Right to Hear Diverse Viewpoints 00:15:17
unidentified		Right.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		So you only hear what the government wants you to hear.
unidentified		Yes.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		When we talk about the First Amendment, people often focus on the speaker.
		And sometimes there's not so much sympathy for a wealthy comedian or a big corporate news media or something like that.
		But can you talk a little bit about the flip side and the right to hear diverse viewpoints and how that's part of the First Amendment?
		Because it really is the public that suffers.
unidentified		Well, that's right.
		One of the premises behind the First Amendment is that the right to speak entails a corresponding right to hear.
		And that when censorship happens, it doesn't just silence the speaker, but it deprives the audience of the ability to hear what was going to be said and to deliberate on it.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		So it would deprive the audience of the ability to hear a late-night comedian's joke or to hear criticism of government action or to hear that, for example, members of the administration were engaging in corrupt practices.
unidentified		All of the above.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and that's the basis many times for our decisions in the ballot box.
		So it does seem like a direct connection.
		Commissioner Gomez, I was interested in your testimony About the consolidation of media and the corporatization of media and how it is really impacting how many voices are in the public sphere and also that they're less independent, that media is more susceptible to financial pressures, and now it appears political pressures.
		I mean, from the advent of this administration, we saw the really disturbing conduct where Mr. Trump or his campaign had sued ABC and CBS in really frivolous lawsuits that weren't worth the paper they were written on, but nevertheless they settled those lawsuits with him for millions of dollars paid to his campaign vehicles or his library.
		Can you talk about the pressures of that consolidation and the corporatization of media and how that is wrapped up in this moment?
unidentified		Yes, so what we've seen is, of course, this administration using whatever levers of power they have in order to get media organizations to report on the administration in ways that they are going to like and also to impose their ideology on basically the American people.
		And they do that because these are corporations that have financial interests that respond to their shareholders.
		So those corporations are capitulating to this administration, I think in a very cowardly way because they are not protecting their journalists.
		And the freedom of the press, our fourth estate, is so important to our democracy.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it is really chilling to see this kind of chilling of public speech.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Any suggestions on what we can do to push back?
unidentified		Well, I was very heartened by the outcry against the Jimmy Kimmel firing.
		And it shows that we need to push back.
		Because as I've said before, this FCC is toothless when it comes to actually retaliating against these companies.
		If they tried to do so, they would lose in court.
		But instead, they use threats to get these companies to self-censor in advance.
		We need them to gain courage, and we need all of us to speak on behalf of the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		Well, and I think the public reaction to the Kimmel suspension certainly showed the power that the public can have in pushing back.
mary gay scanlon ▲ ● ▼		So thank you all for your testimony.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you, Congresswoman Scanlon.
		I'm going to call on Senator Markey and then Congresswoman Ballum.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		Massachusetts yielding to Vermont.
		That's impressive.
		I'm a host guy.
becca balint ▲ ● ▼		Senator, you're very kind.
		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		Senator Blumenthal, thank you so much for convening us.
		Of course, this is an incredibly important topic.
unidentified		It's a topic that my voters in Vermont care deeply about.
		And I just want to jump right in here and take a look at where we are at this moment.
		So you've got Trump weaponizing the FCC's power over media markets to silence dissent.
becca balint ▲ ● ▼		You've all talked about this.
		That's what this is about.
		He wants to take away the rights that Americans have to consume information and news that they have a right to hear.
		To your point, it's not just about freedom of speech, but it's about freedom to hear.
		He wants to silence critics, right?
		And we are in crisis here.
		I believe that his end goal is some kind of state-controlled media, right?
		He has said as much.
		He went after Kimmel, and then a few days later, he basically said we've got to go after all the people who are saying critical things of the president, which, of course, is completely and totally against what we say we are as a nation.
		And as we just talked about, Americans fundamentally get this.
		So you had 6 million people tuning in when Jimmy Kimmel came back on the air, and then another 20 million watching on YouTube and other platforms.
		People get it.
		They're scared about this.
		They want us to be fighting hard for their First Amendment rights.
		And an important underlying issue here that I just want to hammer once again is that you've got the FCC misusing its antitrust powers, from my perspective.
		Whenever one licensed broadcaster attempts to acquire another, they have to get FCC approval.
		And that merger approval power is huge.
		And in the past, we've always accepted, well, it's an independent agency, and you touched on this, and I'll come back around to that.
		Sure, isn't looking independent right now, which should scare all of us.
		So when reviewing a media deal, the FCC has to keep in mind the public interest and consider market competition.
		Again, that's what we say we're all about in this country.
		An open, competitive media market is in our best interest as Americans.
		It's in the best sense of democracy.
		It's in the best interest of protecting our free expression.
		And the government's role should not be picking one approved source of information.
		What we want and what we need, and you spoke to this earlier, we need to have different reasonable viewpoints so that they can play out in public against each other.
		We don't need the heavy hand of any president, and in this case, President Trump interceding in this.
		So we have to be vigilant.
		I mean, that's what I think draws us all here today, is that we know we have to be vigilant.
		Americans are counting on us to stand up for their rights.
		And the FCC seems to be unlawfully conditioning merger approvals on things that are not in the interests of free Americans.
		It should not hinge on a broadcaster agreeing in advance to censor speech, dissenting speech, speech that is critical of the president.
		So I find this extremely dangerous.
		I know Americans generally are in agreement that this is a dangerous step that the FCC has taken from Trump's demands.
		And I want to just stay a little bit on this topic.
		So Mr. Corn Revere, thank you so much for taking the time of being here today.
		How does the FCC typically consider the merits of a proposed merger?
		And how does that compare to the way Brendan Carr and President Trump pressured against their pressure campaign against Paramount and CBS?
		So just lay it out for us.
		How's it supposed to go and how did it actually go?
unidentified		Well, Congresswoman, you ask a question that is really the key of a lot of what is going on.
		But the question is deceptively simple because the FCC's authority to control the merger process, to approve mergers, has also given it tremendous power throughout history.
		And because the public interest mandate is so vague and broad, that has manifested itself in various ways over the years.
		There have been, and this has been true of administrations of both parties, where merger conditions have been suggested.
		Commissioner Gomez put the word voluntary in air quotes for a reason, as we call it, Vermont Rollenhold.
		So that demanding or asking for concessions beyond what the FCC's actual authority is is something that has happened in the past with mergers.
		What we're seeing now is that that ability to demand concessions is being used in a more partisan way.
		But the root problem is the FCC's authority to make these kinds of demands in the first place.
		And it's traditionally true of censorship problems.
		When you worry about censorship, you have to worry about how that power would be used in the hands of your worst enemy.
becca balint ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly right.
		That's exactly right.
		How will it be used in the hands of our worst enemy?
		And I know that I'm out of time, but if I could just have you touch on Commissioner Gomez, what does it mean when we say the FCC is an independent agency?
		Because so much of what we're seeing from this administration is independent agencies mean nothing, right?
		So again, what's it supposed to function like?
unidentified		An independent agency is supposed to be free from political interference from outside of the agency.
		And it's supposed to make its decisions based on its expertise as a multi-member body.
		We don't have that right now because this administration is directly controlling us.
becca balint ▲ ● ▼		I appreciate that.
		And I really appreciate that you use the word expertise because clearly this administration is not at all interested in science or experts or expertise.
		And they've shown that in so many different ways.
		So look, I know this is all about power and control and trying to intimidate all of us into silence.
		They don't give a damn about our rights.
		And we have to fight every single day and not give them an inch.
		And I really appreciate the opportunity to be here in the fight with all of you.
		Thank you very much.
		I yield back.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much, Congresswom Lincoln, Senator Markey.
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		And thank you, Senator Blumethal, Senator Warren.
		Thank you, Congressman Raskin, for holding this very important forum.
		And it's important because the First Amendment, the right of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, that's the beating heart of our democracy.
		That's what protects every other right that you can speak, that you can write, that you can have your views heard.
		All of it.
		That's the beating heart of our democracy.
		They made it the First Amendment because they knew that was going to protect everything else.
		And I've been sounding the alarm about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's mob boss tactics the entire year, and I'm glad he finally is receiving the long overdue scrutiny which he deserves.
		The day after Carr threatened Disney, ABC and their affiliates over Jimmy Kinnell's monologue, I led the Senate Commerce Committee Democrats in a letter to Carr demanding an explanation for his unconstitutional threats.
		Carr responded last week to me with the same ridiculous spin.
		Kimmel's suspension had nothing to do with Carr or his comments.
		It was just market forces in action.
		And of course, that explanation is laughable, and it completely whitewashes Carr's role in the Kimmel incident.
		In fact, in his response to my letter, Carr says nothing about the threatening language.
		It's like his appearance on the right-wing podcast never happened.
		Mr. Conrevere, you and your organization, we go back to the beginning of time, Mr. Conrevere.
		I've been on the Telecommunications Committee now for 49 years.
		So I'm the author, a co-author of every major telecommunications law for a generation.
		So you and I, we know each other, and we know this dramatic change which has taken place.
		You're an expert on free speech.
		Can the type of aggressive, threatening language used by Chairman Carr intimidate companies into changing their behavior without any explicit instruction?
unidentified		Thank you, Senator, for that very good question.
		And it is good to see you again.
		That kind of threatening language is, as I mentioned earlier, a textbook example of the kind of jawboning that the Supreme Court said violates the First Amendment.
		And it doesn't have to be a specific demand.
		It doesn't have to cite a specific rule.
		All it has to do is suggest to a regulated industry that if they aren't willing to go along immediately, then bad things are going to happen.
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		So will this, in your opinion, lead to self-censorship that is almost undetectable but very real in our nation?
unidentified		Well, of course it will.
		And we saw the example of that with the immediate suspension of Jimmy Kimmel.
		And it was only because of the reaction to that that we saw those decisions being reversed.
		And it was a combination of things.
		It was a combination of the market reacting that it wasn't in Disney's best interest to keep Kimmel off the air.
		It was a combination of people canceling their subscriptions to Disney Plus.
		It was a combination of conservative politicians and commentators saying, no, this is going too far.
		And so when all of those things combined to push back, then that decision was rescinded.
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		In politics, many times, it's the pressure no one sees that is the greatest pressure of them all.
		So this chilling effect which he has created has actually instilled a chilling effect in others that will be hard to quantify but very real.
		The timing here is telling.
		Kimmel's controversial monologue aired on Monday night, but Disney, Sinclair, and Nexstar didn't take action on Tuesday or on Wednesday morning.
		It wasn't until after Carr's threats became public that those three companies penalized Kimmel and his show.
		It's obvious that Carr played an integral role.
		That's the reason why Carr is spinning this alternative story now, ignoring his own comments and refusing to answer important oversight questions about his conduct.
		He's trying to evade accountability, and that's why today I'm sending a letter to Chairman Cruz of the Senate Commerce Committee, with jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission, urging him to bring Chairman Carr before the Senate Commerce Committee to answer these critical questions.
		And I'd like to just turn to one other quick, specific example of Carr's weaponization of the FCC, and that's the treatment that he gave to the CBS editorial decision-making around an interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris.
FCC And The First Amendment 00:15:18
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		Commissioner Gomez, does the FCC normally investigate news organizations for their editorial decisions?
unidentified		The FCC should not investigate news organizations for their editorial decisions.
unidentified		I think it's important to note that the FCC dismissed the complaint against CBS for that very episode, and it was reinstated after this administration took over.
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		So what's the problem with the FCC investigating news organizations for their journalism, Commissioner?
unidentified		Well, it's a direct violation of the First Amendment and of the Communications Act prohibition on our censoring of broadcasters.
		And, of course, it has a chilling effect.
		To answer your question that you asked, Mr. Corn Revere earlier, I am doing this First Amendment tour where I'm speaking throughout the country, and I have journalists come to the mic and say, Am I allowed to report on this from this administration?
		What if I say that?
		Am I going to get investigated by the FCC?
		That is the chilling effect that this administration wants.
edward markey ▲ ● ▼		It's sending a message to every reporter, every editor, every owner of every broadcast or actually print journalism in our country that they should be careful and not criticize the president.
		So I thank you all for your great leadership on this issue, because we know Carr doesn't treat Fox News and their distortions the same way that he's treating news outlets that he believes are antithetical to the Trump agenda,
		and that double standard is one that cannot be permitted to exist, which is why Chairman Cruz should have a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee and force Chairman Carr of the FCC to appear to defend his actions.
unidentified		Thank you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thanks, Senator Markey.
		As I mentioned earlier to Senator Klobejar, I do hope that Chairman Carr will be before the Commerce Committee.
		We invited him here.
		He isn't here.
		And I think he owes us, but even more important, the American people, an explanation for his overreach and violation of First Amendment rights.
		You know, Mr. Corn Revere, you wrote an open letter after he was named chairman, before he did any of this stuff, called a plea for institutional modesty in the Columbia Journalism Review, I believe.
		Did you ever hear from him?
unidentified		No.
		And I didn't expect to.
		It was, you know, open letters are really just statements and aspirational comments.
		And what I wanted to do, given the fact that even before he was elevated to the chairmanship, Commissioner Carr was already making statements that sounded like they could be threatening.
		And so I just wanted to go through that history of his past statements that have respected the FCC's jurisdictional limits and the First Amendment to remind him of those and to talk about how the FCC's authority is really limited both by statute and by constitutional limits and to appeal to the better angels of his nature.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		You know, you have a history.
		You've done scholarship in this area for many years.
		And President Trump's not the first president who tried to influence or shape the media.
		Lyndon Bain Johnson was famous for berating reporters.
		Richard Nixon also tried to use the FCC.
		Other presidents, sometimes not so subtly, have made complaints.
		But there seems to be a fundamental difference that's happening here.
		The president is using power directly and blatantly to silence criticism.
		And he's using the criminal justice system to chill free speech, as we saw with the indictment of James Comey, and that others will follow because they had the temerity to oppose him politically or support his political adversaries.
		Is there something different here in your view that President Trump's doing?
unidentified		Well, yes, I think there is.
		And first, as a preface to that, you're right.
		This is an attribute of power.
		It tends to always be abused, and that's been true, whether or not you're talking about Franklin Delano Roosevelt doing IRS investigations on reporters he didn't like or John F. Kennedy initiating fairness dockering complaints against right-wing radio preachers.
		And of course, the Nixon administration.
		What's different about this administration, and a comparison to Nixon is a good one, is that if you'll recall back to the Senate Watergate hearings, it came out that Nixon had an enemies list.
		John Dean had written a famous memo saying that now we're in power, we need to look for ways we can screw our political enemies.
		And at the time, that was a revelation.
		It was an embarrassment to the Nixon administration, and it had to be dragged out through Senate hearings that this was actually what was going on, that kind of abuse of power.
		What we see with this administration is more of a celebration and the public nature of these kinds of activities, where it is written into executive orders or pronouncements on conservative podcasts with direct threats to the FCC, through the FCC, to media companies.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		They are not only saying the quiet part out loud, they are yelling it out loud and celebrating the abuse of power in a way that is not only unprecedented but really contravenes everything we know about what the First Amendment stands for.
unidentified		Yes, but on the bright side, at least you know what they are doing.
		And I think it explains the reaction to this latest episode, where everyone saw what the FCC and Chairman Carr was doing, and that's what prompted the reaction to it.
		And so unlike what is often the case in government jawboning cases where it's happening behind the scenes and behind closed doors, this is out in public, and it has planted the seeds of, I think, the antidote to it.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		The point has been made, and I want to reemphasize it, that there are threats to the media, wholly apart from the Trump administration.
		The economics of the media right now have created a kind of perfect storm, diminishing revenue, fractionalizing of viewership and readership, the cannibalizing and outright theft of content for the large language models that are used in AI.
		I have legislation with Senator Hawley to try to compensate and credit the media for the data that is being used in AI, as well as, in effect, the appropriation of reporting that is done by social media.
		So this is not to we have to hold the media accountable, no question, but we also have to recognize the threats to its independence from the economics.
unidentified		And Senator, if I could add, those economic threats are critical.
unidentified		The fact that they have weakened media is a point that they have, but they make those media organizations more vulnerable to regulators when they come calling and make demands.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Right, exactly.
		Exactly the point that I was trying to make.
		You know, I think folks who may be watching, and by the way, I just want to tell you that we've had a great response from both the House and the Senate to this hearing in the midst of a somewhat busy day, as you might expect.
		And we also have hundreds of people who are watching us.
		In fact, these hearings, spotlight hearings that we've been having in the Senate, have actually had more viewership than the regular hearings that we have, which is a plus, but I think it also highlights that these hearings ought to be bipartisan.
		I regret that my Republican colleagues are not joining in the alarm that we have about this threat to free speech and the First Amendment.
		And so I want to thank our House colleagues for being here.
		I don't know whether any of you have some closing comments.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		I got one closing thing I'd like to say.
		First of all, thank you, Senator Blumenthal, for inviting us and for making this wonderful space available for this significant public purpose.
		You know, I think that this whole debate and everything that just happened with Jimmy Kimmel should remind Americans of what the First Amendment is all about.
		You know, I like to tell my First Amendment students when I got to teach it back as a law professor that the First Amendment is like an apple and everybody wants to take just one bite out of it.
		So somebody doesn't like right-wing speech and they take a bite, and somebody doesn't like left-wing speech and they take a bite, and somebody doesn't like feminist speech and they take a bite, and somebody doesn't like sexist speech and they take a bite, and pretty soon everybody's taking a bite and there's no apple left.
		So if you believe in the freedom of speech, you've got to be willing to tolerate the speech you abhor and that you deplore the most.
		So the principle that we're talking about today is a principle that obviously works in, I was about to say both directions, but politics is not just bi-directional, multi-directional, right?
		It works in every conceivable direction.
		I think Mr. Corn Revere was referring to a Supreme Court decision rendered last term in the National Rifle Association versus Vulo, right?
		And this was a case about precisely the same kinds of threats that were just being made by Chairman Carr against Disney and ABC and against Jimmy Kimmel.
		In that case, it was the Financial Regulatory Commissioner of New York who was basically saying to banks, you don't want to deal with the NRA.
		Or, you know, theoretically, it was something like that.
		You don't want to get involved with them.
		And a unanimous Supreme Court came back and said that if that was indeed the message and if that was the message that was being sent, it was unconstitutional.
		It violated the First Amendment.
		You can't use governmental power to coerce private actors to dissociate themselves from someone, to fire a comedian, or not to do business with someone under the threat that the government is going to engage in reprisals against you.
		I wanted to just close Senator Blumenthal with a quote from Alexei Navalny.
		I don't know if you guys have had the chance to read his beautiful book, Patriot, that came out posthumously.
		But he said, we must do what they fear, tell the truth, spread the truth.
		This is the most powerful weapon against liars.
		Everyone has this weapon, so make use of it.
		Don't be afraid of anything.
		This is our country, and it's the only one we have.
		The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland without a fight to a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites.
		That was Navalny writing about his situation from jail in Russia.
		I yield back to you.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		I hesitate to add anything after that very eloquent closing, Congressman Raskin, but perhaps folks watching might be reminded that the First Amendment is not limitless, that there are potential limits on, for example, inciting violence.
		There are time, place, and manner restrictions that can be imposed.
		And I should probably take your First Amendment class before I go any further.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		You're doing great.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		You're doing great.
		But the limits cannot be content-based.
		They cannot discriminate based on the point of view.
		And that is what is happening here.
		Brendan Carr, after saying that the law doesn't give the FCC a roving mandate to censor, is now censoring.
		And a lot of our Republican friends have said to me privately they are very worried because What goes around comes around.
		And once you eliminate the safeguards based on content, there's no question about what can there's no limit to what can happen when another administration comes into power.
		So this is really dangerous stuff.
		And as Congressman Raskin has said so well, it should alarm all of us.
		And I hope that we can sustain the kind of outpouring of outrage and resistance that we saw to taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
		You know, he's an entertainer.
		He's a comedian.
		I don't think he pretends to be anything he's not.
		But he has really made a mark for the First Amendment, or I should say more correctly.
		The viewers, the advertisers, the ordinary everyday Americans who rose up and demanded that their affiliates put them back on the air have sent a message.
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		If you'd permitted me one final point occasioned by your last reflection, you know, the comedians don't pretend to be anything other than comedians, but comedy is important because the reason millions of people tuned into this and tune in to see the comedians is because the comedians tell us not to be afraid.
The Emperor's Got No Clothes 00:00:56
jamie raskin ▲ ● ▼		We can laugh about this.
		And we have that right in the United States of America.
		We can laugh about everybody.
		Those of us who aspire and attain to public office are nothing but the servants of the people.
		And the minute somebody starts acting like a puffed-up king or lord or emperor, that's the point at which we can say the emperor's got no clothes and everybody can start laughing about it.
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Well said.
		On that note, I really want to thank all of you for being here.
		This has been enormously valuable for us.
Washington Journal Live Discussion 00:03:32
richard blumenthal ▲ ● ▼		And we are very grateful to you for all that you do, not just here, but in your writing, in your speaking, in your advocacy, in your service.
		We thank you very, very much.
		And with that, we're adjourned.
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy.
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		And federal news network's Drew Friedman discusses how federal workers would be impacted by a government shutdown.
		Also, Elie Mistahl of The Nation Magazine talks about the indictment of former FBI director James Comey and actions taken by the Trump Justice Department.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
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How Far Do You Want To Go? 00:00:19
unidentified		Where are you going?
		Or maybe a better question is, how far do you want to go?
		And how fast do you want to get there?
		Now we're getting somewhere.
		So let's go.

Chapters

00:00:00 Engagement Under Pressure
00:05:28 Restoring Jimmy Kimmel
00:08:48 Courage Under Fire
00:12:50 Bribery Statute Murkiness
00:21:24 President's Power Over Media
00:25:52 Regulatory Abuses and Media Freedom
00:40:33 Fcc's New Assertiveness
00:46:01 Challenging Media Vulnerabilities
01:01:40 FCC's Threats Over Media Deals
01:16:53 Congressional Guardrails Needed
01:32:16 The Right to Hear Diverse Viewpoints
01:47:33 FCC And The First Amendment
02:02:37 The Emperor's Got No Clothes
02:03:19 Washington Journal Live Discussion
02:06:36 How Far Do You Want To Go?