“We can do this the easy way or the hard way”: Trump’s FCC again uses the threat of its regulatory powers to push a critic off the air

This is supposed to be a website about media innovation, so I suppose we must acknowledge the innovation of Brendan Carr, Donald Trump’s chair of the Federal Communications Commission. For decades, the renewal of television licenses was overwhelmingly pro forma; a license has been taken away because of content exactly once, when a Mississippi station was racist enough to block Black people from its airwaves for more than a decade. But Carr, that entrepreneurial thinker, realized that the FCC’s power could be abused to force media companies to bend to the regime’s will, forcing out voices it doesn’t like and encouraging fealty in advance. Innovation!

We saw it with 60 Minutes, whose corporate parent — needing FCC approval for a merger — was willing to grease Trump’s palm with millions over a bogus complaint over editing. Depending on who you believe, that handshake deal may or may not have included the canning of America’s No. 1 late-night talk show host and a side deal promising millions in pro-Trump propaganda airtime. It left one of the country’s most important news sources in the hands of a regime loyalist and with a friendly minder overseeing operations.

Well, Paramount isn’t the only media company that needs FCC approval for something — and thus finds itself needing to kiss Carr’s ring. Nexstar, which owns many local TV stations, wants to merge with Tegna, which also owns many local TV stations. That merger will need FCC approval. Brendan Carr has no ideological objections to large media companies becoming larger media companies; indeed, he’s specifically said he wants to make such consolidations easier to pull off! But he’s not one to pass up a point of leverage, and he’s now used Nexstar’s corporate urge to merge to knock another Trump critic off the air. From The New York Times:

ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The abrupt decision by the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, came hours after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, assailed Mr. Kimmel and suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC because of remarks the host made on his Monday telecast. The network did not explain its decision, but the sequence of events on Wednesday amounted to an extraordinary exertion of political pressure on a major broadcast network by the Trump administration…

Mr. Carr, in an interview on a right-wing podcast on Wednesday, said that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” and that the F.C.C. was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead”…

Shortly after Mr. Carr’s remarks, Nexstar, an owner of ABC affiliate stations around the country, said that it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel’s program “for the foreseeable future” because of the host’s remarks. Nexstar recently announced that it planned to acquire a rival company in a $6.2 billion deal, which will be scrutinized by the F.C.C. In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Carr expressed approval for Nexstar’s decision to pre-empt Mr. Kimmel, thanking the company “for doing the right thing.” He added: “I hope that other broadcasters follow Nexstar’s lead.”

Trump, now seeing Colbert and Kimmel’s heads on stakes, is now demanding similar treatment for Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon. (“Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”)

I found myself nodding through the writer John Ganz’s take on the matter:

If you were writing a hackneyed novel or film about an authoritarian America, it would go exactly like this: a figure close to the regime is assassinated, a massive shrill and sanctimonious hue and cry rises over the martyred dead, hysteria is whipped up about terrorism and public disorder, leaders in the regime and movement promise vengeance, private citizens are mobbed and lose their jobs for expressing anti-regime sentiments at the encouragement of regime officials and regime-aligned demagogues, and, then, the power of the state is brought to bear against public figures who oppose and criticize the regime.

This is exactly what’s happening now. The FCC used the threat of its regulatory powers to push Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and it worked. Any explanation other than this one, any account that prevaricates about this reality or points out this or that technicality is a dishonest avoidance of the situation. There will always be some justification that’s minimally persuasive and encourages people to overlook or rationalize what’s going on. That’s how this works: Little exceptions, little reasons to look the other way, little reasons to think, “In this case, what’s the big deal?” They will offer people alibis. And many people will take them. People will say, “Well, what he said was bad.” Or, “Well, they did get the facts wrong.” Then the chill sets in, and people start to become ever more careful about what they say.

Bill Carter, the longtime New York Times beat reporter covering late night, now at Latenighter:

ABC responded by instantly caving, taking Kimmel’s show off the air, and in the process handing Trump the opportunity to glory in his handiwork — which he did gleefully by declaring ABC had canceled the show…ABC, of course, realizes that Trump and Carr will make good on the threat, which Carr stated openly and without any regret about his unabashed abuse of power in undermining the Bill of Rights, using terms Tony Soprano would have loved: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

If ABC decides to stand by Kimmel, the hard way may be financially excruciating. Already the other huge ABC station group, Sinclair Broadcasting, a famously hard-conservative group, leapt to support Carr’s and Trump’s bullying, issuing a statement Wednesday night that it would not carry Kimmel’s show no matter if ABC finds a way to return him to the air…

ABC/Disney is in a brutal situation. This administration can inflict enormous damage to its bottom line if the company defies. It will have to weigh that against the value in defending the principle that the American government has no business dictating who gets to talk on television. If the decision is surrender, much more will be lost than one more talented late-night host.

I'll say it again:

In my opinion, when companies or institutions cave to Trump despite the law being on their side, they are not misunderstanding the law; they are making educated guesses that the U.S. is heading in a direction where, in practice, the law won't matter.

— Matthew Segal (@segalmr) September 17, 2025

https://t.co/coFILBHABk pic.twitter.com/kx5gq6yNy8

— This You? (@Thiss_Youu) September 18, 2025

Trump literally said Kimmel is next back in July! All of this is clearly pretextual. It's like having us believe Lisa Cook got fired because of a mortgage application. Other people can pretend to be that stupid, but you don't have to be.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 17, 2025

I asked FCC chair @BrendanCarrFCC if he had any new comment now that ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel's show, and he sent me this GIF pic.twitter.com/ljz60FzHN4

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 17, 2025