GOP Senator Hits Trump’s FCC Boss for Threatening Broadcast Licenses Over Iran War Coverage: ‘I Do Not Like the Heavy Hand of Government’

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) called out FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s threat to pull broadcast licenses over coverage of the Iran War.

In an interview on The Sunday Briefing on Fox News, anchor Jacqui Heinrich quizzed the Republican senator about Carr’s threat.

“He has been heavily criticizing broadcast news organizations for their war coverage, threatening not to renew their broadcast licenses,” Heinrich said. “And the critics jumped on a post that he made a few years ago … sort of countering himself and saying the FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of public interest. Obviously. There is a lot of criticism on the very news reporting that the administration is unhappy with. But do you think it’s the role of the government to police that kind of coverage from where they sit?”

“I’m in big support of the First Amendment,” Johnson said. “I do not like the heavy hand of government, no matter who’s wielding it. So no, I would rather the federal government stay out of the private sector as much as possible. And really, the federal government’s role is to protect our freedoms, protect our constitutional rights.”

In a Saturday post on X, Carr amplified a media complaint from President Donald Trump and went on to threaten broadcast licenses.

“Broadcasters that 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,” Carr wrote. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Carr later doubled down on that threat in an interview with CBS News.

“People have gotten used to the idea that, you know, licenses are some sort of property right, and there’s nothing you can do that can result in losing their license,” Carr told CBS. “I try to sort of help reorient people that, no, there is a public interest, and broadcast is different.”

As Heinrich noted, Carr — back in 2019 — felt quite differently, saying in an X post, “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest.'”

Watch above, via Fox News.

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