MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The nation's chief broadcast regulator was unrepentant today as Democratic senators blasted him during a hearing on Capitol Hill. They accused him of acting as President Trump's chief censor to intimidate independent reporting and criticism. Here's Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TAMMY BALDWIN: You've become a parrot for President Trump and diminished the independence of the FCC.
KELLY: A key Republican also expressed concerns. NPR's David Folkenflik covered the hearing. He's with me now. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So we are talking about Brendan Carr here - head of the Federal Communications Commission. Start with why Democrats - we just heard Tammy Baldwin there - why were they attacking him?
FOLKENFLIK: Right. The head of the Federal Communications Commission - usually not a household name, but if you think about the climate we're in at the moment, you've had all these lawsuits from the president of United States - President Trump as an individual - against media outlets. Brendan Carr has built on that. He's launched investigations of every single major American news network, including NPR, except for the one owned by one of the president's allies, Rupert Murdoch. That's, of course, the Fox broadcast network. He also went after Jimmy Kimmel and really pressured Disney, the parent company of ABC, to pull him off the air after comments made after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
We heard New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan - he's a Democrat - ask Carr, is the FCC an independent agency? Here's Carr's response.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRENDAN CARR: The FCC is not an independent agency because...
BEN RAY LUJAN: OK, can I read this to you? The FCC's mission on the home page of the FCC, man - an independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.
FOLKENFLIK: And as Senator Lujan spoke, he was correct, but within about 20 minutes or so of what Carr said there, that language was taken off the website of the FCC, even as Carr was still testifying.
KELLY: Wow. Screenshot it while you can. OK, so what is the role of the FCC?
FOLKENFLIK: So it regulates broadcasters. It stems from, you know, expansion of the federal government in the New Deal, the 1930s. The idea is that the bandwidth for people to broadcast on the public airways is limited, and so it has to be regulated in some ways. That allows the FCC to approve the transfer of these licenses, and it gives it a major role in a whole lot of media and telecommunications mergers and acquisitions as a result.
And Carr has made clear he's going to do that. He weighed in, for example, on the acquisition of Paramount by the Ellison family earlier this year and got concessions from them. And he's really using this phrase in the public interest - typically seen as a way of making sure local TV and radio stations look at issues important to people who live in those areas to ensure that there's a broad diversity of viewpoints reflected. He's using that at times to go after coverage and material that conservatives don't like.
KELLY: Speaking of conservatives, we did say a key Republican also had some questions for Carr. Where are Republicans on this?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, pretty muted. But I will say, take Republican Senator Ted Cruz. He's the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Carr's cited both this public interest question and the - what he feels is essentially the unlimited presidential power of President Trump here. And Cruz made a point of disagreeing. He didn't go after Trump or Carr by name, but he said whether the White House is held by Republicans or Democrats, no one should use that public interest clause to chill or censor speech, even speech they don't like.
KELLY: And just put this into context with your reporting. What was your key takeaway from this hearing?
FOLKENFLIK: It seems to me a collision of two stories that we've been talking about and covering all year. There's this extraordinary degree to which there's a consolidation of media companies that often requires government approval and the willingness of this administration to use that as a leverage to influence what comes out of those media companies as a result. You know, Democrats are making a case that that's resulting in the intimidation and chilling of free speech by journalists, by satirists and by others.
KELLY: NPR's David Folkenflik, thank you so much.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
