FCC chair says late-night hosts are now ‘court clerics’

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Wednesday on Fox News’ “Hannity” that late-night hosts have shifted from being “court jesters” to “court clerics.”

The comments came after ABC announced it would indefinitely pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! following his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination on Monday. Fox’s Sean Hannity asked Carr to explain the situation.

“Yeah, broadcasters are different than any other form of communication, including here, we’re on cable right now. Fox News doesn’t have an FCC license. CNN doesn’t, but ABC, CBS, NBC,  those broadcast stations do. And with that license comes a unique obligation to operate in the public interest. And over the years, the FCC walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation,” Carr said. “I don’t think we’re better off as a country for it.”

“But look, President Trump ran directly at these legacy broadcast outlets, and he exposed them to these market forces. A lot of these affiliate groups said, to your point, ‘We’re tired of carrying this stuff.’ Late-night shows, something’s gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology,” Carr added.

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The decision from ABC came almost immediately after one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the U.S., Nexstar Media Group, said on Wednesday it had decided to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its owned and partner ABC-affiliated stations. In a press statement released by Nexstar, Broadcasting Division President Andrew Alford called Kimmel’s comments “offensive and insensitive” and said the decision was made to “let cooler heads prevail.”

“And Nexstar, as you noted, stood up and said, ‘Look, we have the license, and we don’t want to run this anymore. We don’t think it serves the interests of our community.’ Sinclair did the same thing,” Carr said. “So there’s more work to do, but I’m very glad to see that America’s broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of their community. We don’t just have this progressive foie gras coming out from New York and Hollywood.”

During his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” had hit “new lows,” as he claimed that Republicans had attempted to characterize Kirk’s alleged assassin as “anything other than one of them.”

“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.

The comments from the late-night host came after it was revealed that bullet casings from the rifle used to kill Kirk contained a series of phrases such as “Hey fascist! Catch!” and “If you read this, you are gay LMAO.” A third bullet casing also had the engraving of  “bella ciao,” which matches an Italian song name that became a left-wing anthem during World War II.

Amid online speculation from Democrats that Robinson might have been a radical right-winger, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was arrested Friday. At a press conference, Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Robinson “was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology” and had increasingly become political, viewing Kirk as “full of hate and spreading hate.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Carr appeared on “The Benny Show,” labeling Kimmel’s response as “some of the sickest conduct,” floating the possibility of a “suspension” by the network.

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