Suppress & Punish Media
2022
2022-05-02 Brendan Carr posted on X, “President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship”.
https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1521117482303602689
2024 November
2024-11-02 Brendan Carr accused SNL of evading the FCC Equal Time rule in an X post following the announcement that Kamala Harris will be appearing on SNL in the last episode before the presidential election.
https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1852887210330341693
2025 January
2025-01-20 In a section of Project 2025 “A Demonstrated Pattern of Bias”, the publishing attacks NPR as leftist and tyrannical, and calls to eliminate their funding.
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
2025-01-20 Page 246 of Project 2025 villainizes public broadcasting and calls to hand over independent media to states. On September 15, 2025 Republicans passed a bill to hand independent media outlets over to State department contracts.
https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/15/republicans-bill-media-usagm-radio-free-europe-funding
2025-01-20 In his inaugural address, Trump stated, “I will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America”, which is contrary to his ongoing campaign to sue, retaliate, or defund media he doesn’t like.
2025-01-30 Brendan Carr ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS. For context, A headline for TechDirt says, “Trump’s FCC just used a fake ‘investigation’ to shower AT&T and Elon Musk with billions in valuable spectrum”.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/30/nx-s1-5281162/fcc-npr-pbs-investigation
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5384790/trump-orders-end-to-federal-funding-for-npr-and-pbs
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/business/media/npr-pbs-fcc-investigation.html
2025 February
2025-02-15 The White House imposed bans on specific media outlets they deem biased or not aligned with the Trump agenda. As an example, any news outlet that refused to refer to the gulf as Gulf of America was banned from the White House press pool.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/nx-s1-5308628/trump-white-house-press-access-voa
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/news-access-to-press-events/
2025 March
2025-03-14 Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the US Agency for Global media.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvge4l109r3o
2025 July
2025-07-17 CBS asserted that they cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was for “financial reasons”, but many question the timing, since the cancellation came just after the show criticized the Trump v. Paramount lawsuit and CBS had an upcoming merger requiring approval from Trump and the FCC.
2025-07-18 As outlined in Project 2025, the Trump administration defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/18/g-s1-78150/unprecedented-rescission-bill-defunds-public-media
2025-07-18 Trump posted on Truth Social that he was excited about the firing of Stephen Colbert, and he heard that Jimmy Kimmel was next. In the same tweet Trump promoted Greg Gutfeld.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114874422468516376
2025-07-22 Trump tweeted out again that he heard Jimmy Kimmel would be fired and that he wanted Jimmy Fallon fired next.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114897600777919524
https://www.avclub.com/donald-trump-jimmy-fallon-jimmy-kimmel-fired-next-prediction
2025 September
2025-09-10 MSNBC was forced to fire Matthrew Dowd for accurately stating that Charlie Kirk historically pushed controversial and hateful rhetoric.
https://apnews.com/article/dowd-msnbc-kirk-comments-e08f349022c9d69171cd575664141075
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/matthew-dowd-fired-msnbc-charlie-kirk-death-1236514875/
2025-09-14 Mike Lee posted on X that he wanted to restore the Smith-Mundt Act and rename it the Charlie Kirk Act. This would restore legislation designed to silence the media. The post was reposted by Glenn Beck. Lee wrote, “In the coming days, I’ll be filing my previously drafted legislation to restore Smith-Mundt, and renaming it the Charlie Kirk Act. Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now”. Glenn Beck responded, “100% on board. Obama made US Govt propaganda legal again. IT MUST BE BANNED. Join mike, call your senators and ask them to back the Charlie Kirk Act”.
2025-09-17 Trump posted on Truth Social that he wanted Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers fired, ending his tweet with “Do it, NBC”.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115222372625104790
2025-09-17 During a podcast, FCC Chair Brendan Carr demanded that Jimmy Kimmel be indefinitely suspended after Kimmel made comments about the Charlie Kirk shooting.
https://fortune.com/2025/09/18/jimmy-kimmel-misinformation-fcc-brendan-carr-abc-disney/
2025-09-17 During an interview on The Benny Johnson podcast, Brendan Carr stated, “When you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible…I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action. Frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s gonna be additional war for the FCC ahead”.
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting issued a press release on their Investor Relations page demanding that FCC and ABC take further action on Kimmel to make a direct apology to the Kirk family and make a meaningful personal donation to Turning Point USA.
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting stated they would be replacing the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with a Kirk tribute.
2025-09-19 During his podcast “The Verdict with Ted Cruz”, Cruz stated “If the government gets in the business of saying…’we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives”.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-cruz-fcc-brendan-carr-jimmy-kimmel-goodfellas-trump/
2025-09-19 Trump heckled David Letterman via Truth Social, “He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!”.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115233841743981161
2025-09-19 Following the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel, Disney and Hulu lost 1.7 million subscribers and roughly $4B in revenue. Hulu websites began to offer $2.99 a month subscription to salvage some of their customer base.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wle4dx4qwo
2025-09-21 Sinclair Broadcast changed its mind about filling the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with the Kirk tribute and had it moved to YouTube.
2025-09-22 The Pentagon announced a new rule for journalists, requiring them to sign a pledge that they will not gather or report on any information unless it is formally authorized for release.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/20/g-s1-89713/pentagon-new-strict-guidelines-for-media
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/20/pentagon-journalists-restrictions-pledge
2025-09-23 After much backlash, the Jimmy Kimmel show was returned to television.
2025-09-23 In response to Jimmy Kimmel returning to TV, Trump posted, “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back…I think we’re going to test ABC out on this….Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative”.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115256938634035559
2025-09-24 During a press conference in Concord NC, JD Vance responded to a free speech question about Kimmel, “I’m pretty sure that Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air last night, and to the extent that he’s not back on the air it’s because he’s not funny and has terrible ratings. This is not a federal government problem…”, proceeded downgraded the FCC post as a joke, and asserts he “just found out yesterday” the Biden administration was censoring media of its opponents. It is unclear if he was talking about the 2024 attempts to eliminate dangerous misinformation.
2025 October
2025-10-15 All media outlets except OAN refused to sign Pete Hegseth’s journalist pledge. While many journalists were banned from the White House media pool, the Trump administration allowed people like far-right activist and founder of Project Veritas James O’Keefe and Matt Gaetz.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/pentagon-rules-for-the-press/
2025 December
2025-12-21 Bari Weiss pulled an airing of a 60 Minutes episode covering an investigation into the CECOT detention center in El Salvador.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/26/bari-weiss-60-minutes-el-salvador-prison
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-weiss-pulls-60-minutes-story
2025-12-25 Trump posted over 100 times during Christmas, including posts calling to remove licenses from any news station that negatively reported about his presidency.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-broadcast-licenses-terminated-100-negative/
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115772922954148853
2026 January
2026-01-05 The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it would dissolve itself.
2026-01-13 The White House ordered the FBI to search and seize journalist material from the home of a Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. Project 2025 page 214 specifically mandates this action. The reporter’s role was specifically to cover the federal government. After over a thousand federal employees reached out to confidentially share their stories with Hannah about the job cuts from DOGE, the FBI showed up to seize her computers and her phone. The warrant also authorized the FBI to force Hannah to unlock the devices with biometrics.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15/g-s1-106103/fbi-search-washington-post-reporter-home
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/14/washington-post-reporter-search/
2026-01-21 In a public notice, he FCC threatened to pull ABC’s license again in effort to silence both Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert from making political commentary that doesn’t align with the Trump agenda.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jimmy-kimmel-fcc-threat-response_n_6971dbbbe4b0e15d54cbe2e9
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-68A1.pdf
2026 February
2026-02-16 The FCC chair contacted CBS directly to warn them not to broadcast an interview with James Talarico on the Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert over equal time rules.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/17/colbert-cbs-talarico-interview-fcc-trump-carr
2026-02-18 The FCC initiated an investigation into The View for broadcasting an interview with James Talarico, also citing the equal time rule. Note: cable networks like Fox and OAN, and conservative talk radio are exempt from this rule.
https://people.com/the-view-fcc-investigation-james-talarico-equal-time-11908898
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2026/02/19/the-view-abc-james-talarico/88758329007/
2026-02-22 Trump threatened Netflix, telling them to fire board member Susan Rice. He told Netflix they would “pay the consequences” if they didn’t “immediately” fire the former UN ambassador under the Obama administration. This threat came after Netflix tried to acquire Warner Brother Discovery but was outbid by Paramount.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/23/trump-netflix-susan-rice
https://theweek.com/business/trump-netflix-susan-rice-state-run-capitalism
2026 March
2026-03-11 The Pentagon banned press reporters from taking photos inside the press briefing room after they published ‘unflattering’ photos of Pete Hegseth.
https://www.tmz.com/2026/03/11/photographers-barred-after-taking-bad-pete-hegseth-pictures/
2026-03-14 Pete Hegseth chastised the media for reporting truths about the war in Iran. He ranted about reading a headline “Mideast War Intensifies” and offered his own edit “Iran Increasingly Desperate”. One article quoted Hegseth as saying, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better” in reference to CNN.
https://newrepublic.com/article/207760/pete-hegseth-iran-war-patriotic-media-coverage
https://x.com/atrupar/status/2032430133353591082
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/politics/hormuz-trump-administration-underestimated-iran
https://newrepublic.com/article/207760/pete-hegseth-iran-war-patriotic-media-coverage
2026-03-14 FCC’s Brendan Carr also threatened the media for reporting on the war in Iran. He wrote on X, “Broadcasters are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not. And frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disasters. The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves. It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news. When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen. Time for change!”
https://x.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/2032855414233047172
https://www.cato.org/blog/fcc-threats-fog-war-government-cannot-be-arbiter-truth
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/post/five-questions-why-fcc-chair-carrs-license-threats-are-empty/
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5786490-fcc-chair-threatens-broadcasters/
2026-03-18 Trump tweeted out, “For all of the Fake News out there, it’s called the SAVE AMERICA ACT, not the SAVE ACT. Nobody knows what the Save Act means!!!”.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116250143939100110