Exclusive | Trump will rebalance media, FCC boss Brendan Carr tells Pod Force One and urges broadcasters to air pro-America programs
The Trump administration aims to “rebalance” the media by encouraging television broadcasters to “stand up” for their communities and air more patriotic programming, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr said in the latest episode of “Pod Force One.” Carr used last year’s uproar over late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s inflammatory comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination as an example of how such a rebalancing could play out and why it needs to happen. “They’ve amassed a tremendous amount of power,” Carr said of the legacy television network broadcasters, “and they’ve effectively turned those local TV stations into mouthpieces for the foie gras, oftentimes, that they’re producing in New York and Hollywood.“So, one of the North Stars of the policies we’re pushing here at the FCC is to rebalance that,” he told “Pod Force One” host Miranda Devine.“We want to empower those local TV stations to actually stand up for their local communities,” the FCC chairman explained.“And if New York or Hollywood is pushing programming that they don’t think is a good fit, then they can take action. “In fact, that is what happened in the Kimmel episode, where you had owners of those local TV stations that said, right now, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, we have stations in Utah, stations in other places around the US, we don’t want to run that right now, and so they didn’t.”Disney, the parent company of ABC, suspended the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host for five days last September after the comedian falsely suggested Kirk was killed by Trump supporters — despite authorities indicating that the Turning Point USA founder’s alleged assassin had left-wing views.Disney’s decision came just hours after Carr signaled that ABC stations could be penalized if action wasn’t taken against Kimmel, and the same day Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group — whi...