--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Maggie Severns: I'm Maggie Severns, and we're here to talk about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel's show.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Monday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live started off like most other days. Kimmel took the stage in front of a live audience and launched into a monologue.
--:-- Maggie Severns: Kimmel delivered what a lot of people would expect to be kind of a normal Jimmy Kimmel monologue, which included criticism of Trump.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But it was happening at this extraordinary moment where people are grieving the death of Charlie Kirk.
--:-- Maggie Severns: 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.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: In between the finger pointing, there was grieving on Friday the week.
--:-- Maggie Severns: Kimmel was also critical of President Trump's grieving process.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend.
--:-- Maggie Severns: This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish, okay?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Kimmel goes after Trump almost every day on his show.
--:-- Maggie Severns: But this time, conservatives felt that his monologue took things too far.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is a crowd that has already been offended many times by Jimmy Kimmel, and this became the straw that broke the camel's back.
--:-- Maggie Severns: On Wednesday, Disney said it was suspending Kimmel's show indefinitely.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: On its face, it looked like a straightforward case of a company responding to public pressure.
--:-- Maggie Severns: But Maggie says there was actually a lot more to it than that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There are questions in here about what is free speech.
--:-- Maggie Severns: There are questions about what is Trump doing to wield the federal government's power.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it all kind of leads to this, right now, this one agency and this one bureaucrat, Brendan Carr, who feels like he has these legal and bureaucratic tools to really carry out Trump's agenda.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I'm Ryan Knutson.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It's Friday, September 19th.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Coming up on the show, Jimmy Kimmel's suspension and Trump's escalating campaign against the media.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We'll see you next time.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Brands.
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--:-- Ryan Knutson: Among the many conservatives calling for Jimmy Kimmel to be reprimanded for his comments was Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Brendan Carr, who's the chairman of the SEC, went on Benny Johnson's podcast.
--:-- Benny Johnson: Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for being on our program.
--:-- Brendan Carr: You know, when you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: On the podcast, Carr said that Kimmel was misleading the public by suggesting that the Charlie Kirk shooter was a Trump supporter.
--:-- Brendan Carr: The shooter's mother has told investigators that her son had grown more left-leaning over the last year.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican person
--:-- Brendan Carr: If that what happened here with his conduct that is really really sick
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr criticism carried a bit more weight than other conservative critics because his agency, the FCC, has regulatory oversight over broadcasters like ABC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And he said, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
--:-- Brendan Carr: I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action.
--:-- Brendan Carr: Frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Let's talk about Brendan Carr for a moment.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Who is he?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So on the one hand, Brendan Carr is this kind of Trump warrior who says that he can wield this huge power over broadcast and network news.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: On the other hand, he is a Washington bureaucrat who's been working at the FCC for more than 10 years.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He's taken a very different approach from people before him, and he has been very vocal online.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He's not afraid to be seen as political, and he's not afraid to be seen as very closely allied with the president.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr is all in on Trump.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He's even been seen wearing a golden lapel pin with Trump's face.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And he also wrote a chapter in Project 2025, that controversial Republican blueprint on what the FCC should be doing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, he did.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He wrote a chapter on what the FCC should be doing that outlined a much more kind of muscular FCC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: One of the ways CARS has sought to flex the FCC's muscles is by using its power over granting broadcast licenses.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Can you explain what broadcast licenses are and why they matter to a TV network?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, they matter because a broadcast license lets you use the airwaves, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The airwaves are out there and someone needed to, just like with radio, kind of regulate who gets them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And there's this idea written into the law by Congress that if you have a license to use the airwaves, there are certain responsibilities then that you carry, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Right, because the government is basically giving these companies a slice of the airwaves.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so the command is that they ought to be using that piece, that public resource that nobody else can use in the public interest.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And for decades, that public interest idea has basically kind of sat on the sidelines.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There was one time that one of our reporters could find that that's actually been used.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it was a station in the South in the early 1970s that had its broadcast license revoked over promoting segregation.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so, you know, for a year, more than a year, Brendan Carr has said, we should be looking at this.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Like these licenses, he would say, are not sacred cows.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We can take away someone's license if they aren't acting in the public interest.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The question then is, what is the public interest?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Maggie and our colleague Joe Flint recently interviewed Carr at his office in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr told them about what he thinks is and is not in the public interest.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Well, it's not going after them for favorable or unfavorable coverage.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: There's lots of favorable covers that they do as well, it's holding it to that public interest standard.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And one of the elements of that public interest standard is news distortion.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The FCC has a rule against news distortion, which says broadcasters aren't allowed to use the public airwaves to knowingly spread blatantly inaccurate information about a major news event.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The rule has rarely been applied.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Local stations that carry ABC need a license to broadcast over the airwaves.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So losing those rights would be very detrimental to their business.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Those broadcast licenses also give Carr another point of leverage.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Over mergers.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: In order for a broadcast license to be transferred to another company, like in the case of a merger, the FCC has to sign off.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Take, for example, earlier this year, when Skydance wanted to merge with Paramount.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr's FCC got to oversee that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And before the deal was approved, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit against CBS, one of Paramount's networks.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The company also hired a Trump ally to keep an eye out for signs of bias in its coverage.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Here's Carr talking about the merger on CNBC.
--:-- Brendan Carr: The thing that was really important to me in all of this was that the new owners of CBS came in and said, it's time for a change.
--:-- Brendan Carr: We're going to reorient it towards getting rid of bias, to looking at fact reporting
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Getting back to this Kimmel situation it seems like when Carr said we can do this the easy way or the hard way he's implying that there's a lot the FCC can do to put pressure on ABC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The implication there is, hey, I have all these levers and I'm not afraid to use them.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So these large companies have to interact with the FCC
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I don't think it's a stretch to interpret that as a threat from Carr saying, hey, I can make your life much harder.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr didn't end up needing to do things the hard way.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Coming up, Inside Disney's decision to pull the plug on Kimmel.
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--:-- Ryan Knutson: The FCC wasn't the only player with leverage over Disney, ABC's parent company.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Two of its biggest affiliate partners were also dialing up the pressure.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: You have these national companies, ABC, NBC, CBS, but when you think about what actually happens when you're watching network news, you're watching your local affiliate, right?
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And those local affiliates are actually carrying the national broadcasts.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so there's a company that owns that local affiliate, and then there's a national company like NBC or CBS that's being carried on the local channel.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: One of the affiliates that started pressuring Disney is called Nextstar.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It operates more than 30 ABC stations around the country.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Nextar said that it was not going to carry Kimmel's show.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So the president of Nextar came out and said, Mr. Kimmel's comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national discourse.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Nextar is currently seeking approval from the FCC to acquire another network of local stations, and a deal valued at $6.2 billion.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The company said it had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making the decision to pull Kimmel's show.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The other affiliate to take action was Sinclair, which owns another 30 ABC stations.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Sinclair said that instead of airing Kimmel's show, it would air a special during that time slot in remembrance of Kirk.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Carr, at the FCC, later applauded these moves during an interview on Fox News.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Nextar, as you noted, stood up and said, look, we have the license and we don't want to run this anymore.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We don't think it serves the interests of our community.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Sinclair did the same thing.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So there's more work to go.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But I'm very glad to see that America's broadcasters are standing up to serve the interests of their community.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We don't just have this progressive foie gras coming out from New York and Hollywood.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: As complaints from Nextar and Sinclair intensified the situation, inside ABC, executives were feeling the pressure.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So my colleague, Joe Flint, who's been reporting on this, talks about how in one of his stories, this news really kind of shot up the ladder at ABC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And it was a conversation, you know, that the chief executive, Bob Iger and others are having.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And that, you know, Next Star's decision to stop carrying the show was one of the factors that really influenced their actions.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Disney executives were worried that what Kimmel had planned to say for Wednesday's show might make things worse.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: According to people familiar with the matter Kimmel had planned to tell the audience that his words on Kirk had been purposefully twisted by some members of the MAGA movement
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The company was also growing concerned about the safety of the show staff who had started receiving threatening messages
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so Disney made the call Kimmel show was being suspended indefinitely
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Kimmel has not publicly commented since his suspension.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: After Kimmel was taken off the air, Trump took to social media to celebrate.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He said it was, quote, great news for America, and that Kimmel had, quote, zero talent.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: He also appeared to call in another network, NBC to cancel two other major late-night shows late night with Seth Meyers and the tonight show starring Jimmy Fallon
--:-- Ryan Knutson: that didn't stop Meyers and Fallon from weighing in though Meyers criticized Kimmel's suspension as part of a crackdown on free speech
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Fallon said he hopes Kimmel comes back on air an NBC Universal spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Trump also told reporters that the FCC should revoke broadcasting licenses of networks that are, quote, against him.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: They give me wholly bad publicity or press.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I think they're getting a license.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: I would think maybe their license should be taken away.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: It will be up to Brendan Carr.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is something that Trump has talked about for a while, you know, when he was on the campaign trail, this, you know, railing at the media and railing at broadcasters like CBS and ABC is something he did often.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And so as we move forward with this, in this case, the threat of action seems to have been enough when it came to Jimmy Kimmel.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This also seems like something that in the first Trump administration, there were a lot of government officials who if Trump would say something like this, that all the broadcasters should have their licenses revoked because they're against me, there'd be people in the administration and in other government agencies that would push back on that and wouldn't go along with that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: But now with Brendan Carr, he has someone who seems to be also just as willing to do something like that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Yeah, we've talked about how this is historically very unprecedented from the FCC.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And, you know, Brendan Carr, if you talk to him, he's someone who is subscribed to this theory of the unitary executive, this idea that the executive branch should all basically be under the control of the president, that something like the FCC or the Fed is not actually an independent agency.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And here what we have is a person who runs one of these agencies that used to see itself as independent saying, I don't believe that.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I'm happy to work with the president and I'm happy to carry out his agenda and figure out what I can do.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Kimmel isn't the only person to get in trouble at his job over making comments about Charlie Kirk's death.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Wall Street Journal has also reported that many people are being fired for making comments online.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: So a lot of my coverage has to do with this intersection between business and Washington.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And since the start of the year, I've actually been quite surprised with the speed at which business has kind of fallen in line with things that the president asked or the speed with which people donated to Trump's inauguration.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: This is another iteration of that, another iteration of these kind of battles to remake American culture that we're seeing across the board.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: We're seeing them at universities, at law firms.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: And I wouldn't be surprised, given the way things are going, if the country looks very different two years from now as Trump finds other sectors that he wants to get involved in.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Before we go, heads up that episode two of our new incredible series, Camp Swamp Road, is out on Sunday.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The first episode is in our feed.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: That's all for today.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Friday, September 19th.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Additional reporting in this episode by Joe Flint, Isabella Simonetti, and Suzanne Vernitsa.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Ryan Knutson: The show is made by Catherine Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Carlos Garcia, Rachel Humphries, Sophie Codner, Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Jessica Mendoza, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa Sarah Platt Alan Rodriguez Espinosa Heather Rogers Pierce Singhi Jivika Verma Lisa Wang Catherine Whalen Tatiana Zamis and me, Ryan Knutson
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Our theme music is by So Wiley
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Additional music this week from Catherine Anderson Peter Leonard Bobby Lord Emma Munger Griffin Tanner and Blue Dot Sessions
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Fact-checking this week by Kate Gallagher
--:-- Ryan Knutson: Thanks for listening
--:-- Ryan Knutson: See you on Sunday
