Brendan Carr: is Trump’s FCC chair uniquely powerful or a paper tiger?

During a ceremony at the White House late last week honoring the US Naval Academy football team, Donald Trump gave a shoutout to the man he said was “perhaps the most powerful man in this room”: Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chairman.

“You are doing some job,” Trump said. “He’s trying to make the fake news real and respected again, which is not an easy job.”

Trump then made a claim that a large number of press freedom groups and first amendment advocates would sharply disagree with, telling Carr: “Everybody in the room – everybody in this whole country – is watching what you’re doing and we appreciate it.”

It’s undeniable, however, that the country’s attention is fixed on Carr, 47, to a degree that is highly unusual for the chairman of a historically independent agency tasked with regulating telecommunications and dealing with wonky matters like spectrum allocation.

Carr generated a national news cycle earlier this month after re-posting Trump’s complaints about media coverage of the Iran war and seemingly threatening the licenses of broadcasters “that are running hoaxes and news distortions”.

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” Carr wrote in a widely shared post on X, echoing comments he has made previously. Carr’s post drew condemnation from congressional Democrats, but also from a prominent Republican senator, Ron Johnson, who espoused his support of press freedom and said: “I do not like the heavy hand of government, no matter who’s wielding it.”

It was not the first time Carr’s threatening tone – and warnings to broadcasters about losing their licenses – has generated controversy. In September 2025, he drew bipartisan backlash for pressuring television stations to “take action” against ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (He later claimed that he never “threatened” networks.)

Television licenses are given to local stations, not national networks. And while no licenses are up for renewal until at least 2028, Carr has said that the FCC has the legal right to “call in licenses for early renewal”. He could specifically target the licenses of stations directly owned and operated by conglomerates like Disney-owned ABC and NBC.

“Even though these threats are very legally weak and really there’s no legal basis for these threats, it doesn’t mean they’re harmless,” Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat-appointed commissioner on the FCC, said in an interview. “Newsrooms are feeling the pressure. They don’t need to wait for the FCC to take some enforcement action to feel pressure here.”

During an FCC meeting last month, Carr confirmed that the agency had opened an investigation into the ABC day-time talk show The View for allegedly violating equal time rules by hosting Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico without his rivals being given a platform. Since then, the number of politicians who have appeared on The View – which ABC has long characterized as a news program, and therefore presumptively exempt from the regulations – has reportedly declined.

Like Trump, Carr has expressed no regrets over comments he has made that have been perceived as retaliation for reporting critical of the Trump administration. If anything, Carr-directed outrage from the mainstream media and Democratic politicians seems to make Trump like him even more. Carr is also creative in his media-bashing, saying in February that “the American people have more trust in gas station sushi than they do in the national news media.” (It wasn’t the first time he had made that jab.)

“The networks should not be an arm of the Democratic Party,” said Daniel Suhr, who has filed numerous complaints against television networks in his role as president of the conservative Center for American Rights. “Saying so isn’t an attack on press freedom – it’s a comparison between reality and the long-standing FCC goal of viewpoint diversity on the public airwaves.”

Ahead of a monthly FCC meeting on Thursday, the advocacy organization Free Press paid for an electronic billboard to drive around the commission’s building with a photo of Carr labeled as “Censorship Czar”. Schmoozing with reporters before the meeting, the gregarious and outgoing Carr noted that the organization had used an old photo in which he had more hair.

During a press conference after the meeting, Carr said his “north star in media” is taking away influence from the coastal media giants: “How do we constrain the power of these national programmers and re-empower local broadcasts?”

Still, whether local stations are owned by national media conglomerates or merely have affiliate deals with them, Carr said they’re required to operate in the public interest.

“If there ends up being an instance in which an affiliate or owned-and-operated station isn’t operating in the public interest, of course, license revocation is something that is always on the table,” he told the Guardian. “If it’s not, then it’s not a license, it’s a property right. So, I think it’s good that people are mindful now that there are things they have to do.”

Many of the Carr FCC’s most controversial actions have taken place outside of these open meetings. On 19 March, the FCC approved local television giant Nexstar’s $6.2bn merger with rival TEGNA – without a vote from the full commission, and in violation of rules guarding against any television company owning more than 39% of stations in the country. (The companies were granted waivers.)

The deal would create a behemoth owning 265 television stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia, and still faces legal action from opponents who charge it will destroy local news and raise prices for consumers.

Republican senator Ted Cruz, who previously criticized Carr’s conduct during the Kimmel affair, said publicly that the Nexstar-TEGNA merger should have received a full commission vote, rather than being approved by the commission’s media bureau. It still could, Carr said Thursday.

Despite the large number of investigations aimed at a wide variety of media companies he has initiated in the past 14 months, Carr largely has not taken enforcement actions, which would be challengeable in court.

“As best I can tell, he doesn’t do anything by way of an appealable action,” said Alfred C Sikes, who was appointed by former President George HW Bush to serve as FCC chairman from 1989 to 1993. “So, he creates fear, and in the world in which we live, things are pretty fragile.” (Using a Trumpian insult, Carr has previously accused Sikes – and several of his fellow former FCC commissioners – of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.)

“The predisposition of somebody in a thin margin business is to cut back, cut back, cut back, keep your head down, do the things that can arguably be profitable, and that’s it,” Sikes said. “And so if all of a sudden you’ve got a Federal Communications Commission that is creating a fearful environment in which you operate, then you’re simply going to pull back. You’re either not going to cover news or you’re only going to cover bland information. And so that’s my fear.”

While past FCC chairmen have taken pains to keep some distance from the president who appointed them, Carr has shown no interest in doing so, visiting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida on several occasions. In December, he was pictured eating dinner near the president. (Sikes quipped that he was “never invited” to vacation with the president.)

Gomez, who declined comment when asked whether it’s appropriate for an FCC chairman to visit a president’s resort, said she continues to have “a very open and honest relationship” with Carr marked by “frank discussions about what the agency is doing”. She said: “We keep our relationship cordial and we may disagree on the issues, but we remain respectful and collaborative where we can.” (Carr is also gracious during FCC meetings, regularly praising Gomez for her contributions to initiatives.)

But Gomez has not held back in her denunciations of Carr’s leadership. And she has repeatedly called on broadcasters not to be swayed or intimidated by his threatening messages.

“Ultimately, the era of the FCC as a paper tiger will come to an end,” she said. “But what the public will remember is which company capitulated and which broadcaster complied in advance.”