President Donald Trump has defended his Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr after Republican Senator Ted Cruz compared him to a mafia boss for demanding Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
In a stinging rebuke on his podcast this week, Cruz blasted Carr’s actions, describing them as “dangerous as hell” and “right out of GoodFellas.”
“Let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said; we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like’—that will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz said.
“They will silence us,” he added, warning what might happen if the Democrats returned to power and followed suit.
“They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly.”
But speaking in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump described Carr as “an incredible American patriot” who had shown courage for taking on broadcast networks that criticized him.
“I disagree with Ted Cruz,” he told reporters.
“I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly, and purposely horribly.
“He doesn’t like to see a person that won the election in a landslide get 97 percent bad publicity before the election.
“(The networks) have to show honesty and integrity… When they take a great success, like you often do, and you make it into like it’s a loser, or you put a negative spin on it, I don’t think that’s right. So I think Brendan Carr is a great American.”
The comments came days after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off the air after its host, Kimmel, made comments about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel criticized some in the MAGA movement for trying to distance themselves from the shooter, effectively suggesting they were politicizing the murder.
Carr, a Project 2025 architect whom Trump picked to chair the FCC, then threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license, suggesting the comments violated obligations that broadcasters have to serve the public interest.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said on the Benny Johnson podcast.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
House Democratic leaders called for Carr’s resignation and accused him of “bullying” ABC into suspending Kimmel.
In a joint statement, the leaders—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries—said the move was part of Trump and Republicans’ effort to wage a “war on the First Amendment.”
But while GOP members have been fairly cautious in their response, Cruz hit out at Carr’s actions. He said that while Kimmel had become “profoundly unfunny” over the years, the push to suspend him set a dangerous free speech precedent.
Putting on a mobster’s accent, Cruz also declared: “That’s right out of a mafioso going into a bar, and going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it!’
Kimmel’s suspension was not the only attack on free speech this week.
Late on Monday, the president filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and some of its most prominent reporters for articles and a book that made the case that he built his business fortune, in part, through fraud.
On Tuesday, he lashed out at Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist John Lyons for asking him if it was “appropriate” for a president to be enriching himself while in office.
He also took aim at ABC reporter Jonathan Karl that day for asking him about Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threat to prosecute people for hate speech, something that is protected under the First Amendment.
“She’d probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart,” Trump fired back.
And on Thursday, he suggested that broadcasters allowing overt criticism of him should, “maybe lose their license.”
