Is the government crossing the line when it comes to free speech? And is America falling behind China in the race for next-generation wireless technology?
In this consequential Senate oversight hearing, lawmakers questioned FCC Chairman Brendan Carr about two of the biggest issues facing the United States today: protecting First Amendment freedoms and ensuring America stays ahead of China in the global technology race.
The hearing examined allegations that government officials have pressured private companies to suppress certain viewpoints online, with lawmakers debating the constitutional...
0:38Chairman, my question is this: so long as there is a public interest standard, shouldn't it be understood to encompass robust First Amendment protections to ensure that the FCC cannot use it to chill speech?
3:26Chairman Carr, is the commission on track to meet the law's spectrum deadlines and to fully deliver on the bill's obligations?
4:35And what will the benefits to consumers be of 800 megahertz of spectrum being made available for auction for the private sector?
In 2018, Senate Democrats tried to pressure the FCC to use the public interest standard to stop Sinclair Broadcasting Group from acquiring Tribune Media. In 2023, leftists sought to stop a routine renewal of a Fox-owned broadcast station over complaints about 2020 election coverage. Do you agree that that was wrong?
Yes, Senator, I agree. And those are cases, in fact, where rather than following FCC precedent, the agency broke from it and did so in a weaponized way.
Now, another area of agreement between you and I is that Jimmy Kimmel is angry, overtly partisan, and profoundly unfunny. That sadly is true for most late-night comedians today, who seem to have been collectively broken by President Trump's election. Jimmy's remarks about Charlie Kirk were tasteless, and ABC and its affiliates would have been fully within their rights to fire him or simply to no longer air his program. That was their choice. But what government cannot do is force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly. Government officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech. This is why it was so insidious how the Biden administration jawboned social media into shutting down conservatives online over accurate information on COVID or voter fraud. My Democrat colleagues were persistently silent over that scandal, but I welcome them now having discovered the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Democrat or Republican, we cannot have the government arbitrating truth or opinion. Mr. Chairman, my question is this: so long as there is a public interest standard, shouldn't it be understood to encompass robust First Amendment protections to ensure that the FCC cannot use it to chill speech?
Yes, Senator, I agree with you there, and I think the examples you laid out of weaponization during the Biden years are perfect examples. The Fox case you mentioned was a renewal for a broadcast TV license, and petitioners sought to have the FCC not renew it based on content that aired on a separate cable channel. In the cable context, it's entirely different. There's no license. There's no public interest standard. So, first and foremost, we have to make sure the FCC is hewing to precedent. Similarly, we saw Democrats in Congress write letters to cable companies pressuring them to drop Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax because they disagreed with the political perspectives of those cable channels. And there again, it was cable, no broadcast license, no public interest standard. So, the FCC has to write within the four corners of our precedents to be consistent with the Communications Act and the First Amendment concerns as well.
All right, let's shift to spectrum. One of the biggest economic and national security wins in the Working Families Tax Cut Act was restoring the FCC's auction authority and creating the largest spectrum pipeline, 800 megahertz of spectrum in U.S. history. It won't just bring faster and cheaper wireless to consumers, but it will keep the United States competitive in the global 6G race against communist China. I'm encouraged that the FCC has already begun the process of freeing up potentially as much as 180 megahertz of C-band spectrum. Chairman Carr, is the commission on track to meet the law's spectrum deadlines and to fully deliver on the bill's obligations?
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Carr, B. (2026, June 26). .Senator Exposes FCC Censorship Battle as Brendan Carr Sounds Alarm on China [Interview transcript]. UNITED STATE SENATE LIVE. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3026802/
MLA
Brendan Carr. ".Senator Exposes FCC Censorship Battle as Brendan Carr Sounds Alarm on China." UNITED STATE SENATE LIVE, 26 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3026802/.
BibTeX
@misc{carr2026_3026802,
author = {Brendan Carr},
title = {.Senator Exposes FCC Censorship Battle as Brendan Carr Sounds Alarm on China},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, UNITED STATE SENATE LIVE. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jun},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3026802/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
