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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday that the commission’s move to call on Disney’s broadcast licenses for early renewal has nothing to do with President Trump’s call to fire ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
Instead, Carr said the decision was prompted by an investigation that began more than a year ago into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices, and that a perceived lack of documentation from Disney led to this week’s letter.
“We felt like they were playing with drugs, and they weren’t quite ready for the production,” Carr told reporters at the FCC’s open meeting in April, which was streamed live. “If they had submitted the documents by the original deadline, I don’t think we would be at the same moment in time that we are in now.”
“The FCC has written rules: You can’t discriminate on the basis of race and gender, and there was evidence presented that that’s what Disney was doing,” he added. “I understand that anything we do is now framed as ‘in the aftermath’ in the headlines, and I understand that that is the case, but we have to make those decisions based on where we are in the investigations and what is best for the next steps in the enforcement actions in the headlines can be the headlines, but that was the basis for our decision.”
In fact, Carr was pressed on whether President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump’s call to fire Kimmel had any role, and he denied it.
“There was no pressure from the outside. There was no suggestion from the outside. There was no call for action from the outside,” Carr said. “The First Lady has expressed her view. The President has expressed his view. I think over the time here, you’ve heard me talk about these issues more often. There are a lot of people who agree with the President on this.”
However, Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez responded to Carr’s argument, telling reporters: “This is clearly an excuse. I mean, give me a break.”
“This is just another part of a pattern of harassment and retaliation to bend Disney to the will of this administration,” she added.
Carr was also asked about Senator Ted Cruz’s comments that he did not believe the FCC should monitor speech.
“I agree with Senator Cruz that the FCC should not act as the speech police,” Carr said. “What we need to do as an agency is enforce our rules and regulations, and there are rules about non-discrimination that have nothing to do with speech that we have deployed across the board. That is the basis for an early renewal in the Disney case.”
Disney may not be the last. Another company that has been a target of President Trump, NBC owner Comcast, is also being investigated over its DEI policies, and Carr suggested there may be more to come on that front.
“I don’t have an update right now on where we stand in the Comcast report, but we have been very consistent across the board on what we consider to be troubling forms of discrimination in DEI,” Carr said. “As the deals are before the FCC, we’ve asked people to look at their policies and make sure they don’t have what we believe are harmful forms of DEI.”
