Senator Accuses FCC Chair of Launching Investigations Into ‘Every Major Broadcast Network’ Except Fox in Tense Exchange

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) got into a heated exchange with Federal Communication Commission Chair Brendan Carr, accusing him of selectively targeting certain media broadcasters.

Carr appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday for the first time since the brief suspension of late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel by ABC. Carr faced bipartisan backlash in September when he said in a podcast interview that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” when it came to Kimmel following the comedian’s controversial comments on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Klobuchar told Carr that Kimmel was “not an isolated incident” on Wednesday.

“You’ve launched investigations into every major broadcast network except Fox. Is that correct?” the senator asked.

Carr said he didn’t know if that was true, acknowledging there are numerous investigations into media outlets like NPR, PBS, and others.

“I think if you step back over the years, I think the FCC has walked away from enforcing the public interest standard, and I don’t think that’s a good thing,” he said.

Klobuchar used the “public interest” line to then bring up President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post about filmmaker Rob Reiner, following Reiner and his wife’s being stabbed to death in their home. Reiner was a vocal critic of Trump, and the president suggested in his post that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” was somehow behind the murder.

Klobuchar pressed Carr on whether he would have “threatened” to take Kimmel “off the air” had he said exactly what the president did about Reiner.

“If Jimmy Kimmel would have said that, would have you have threatened to take him off the air?” she asked.

Carr answered by saying he was being accused of “censorship” so he was not going to police social media posts. He argued there is a “public interest” element to broadcasters that doesn’t apply to social media.

“I think they are cruel. I think that they hurt President Trump to say that kind of thing,” Klobuchar said. “I think it hurts him with trust from the American people, but this is the kind of stuff that’s going on right now, and yet you are going after broadcast stations — except for Fox!”

Watch above via CSPAN.