Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday it was “wrong” for the FCC to comment on the
The lawmaker explained during an appearance on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” that Chairman Brendan Carr has “no business weighing in” on the suspension, which took place after Kimmel talked on air about the reaction to conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.
The government’s got no business in it, and the FCC was wrong to weigh in, and I’ll fight any attempt by the government to get involved with speech, I will fight,” Sen. Paul said.
Carr warned during an episode of a podcast show released Wednesday that there was going to be “additional work for the FCC ahead” if broadcasters didn’t “find” ways to “change conduct” and “take action.” ABC suspended “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” the same day.
“Absolutely inappropriate. has got no business weighing in on this, but people have to also realize that despicable comments, you have the right to say them, but you don’t have the right to employment,” Sen. Paul reacted.
Kimmel said during an episode of his show last week that members of a “MAGA gang” were “desperately” trying to characterize Tyler Robinson, who is charged with murdering Kirk, as “anything other than one of them.” Sen. Paul noted Sunday that virtually every employed person is subject to a code of conduct, “and if you don’t adhere to that conduct, if you say things that are reprehensible or that glorify someone’s death or make fun of it in some way, yeah, you can be fired.”
The FCC “should have nothing to do with it,” though, the lawmaker added. His colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also rejected Carr’s warnings in a podcast episode released Friday. Sen. Cruz said it was “dangerous as hell” for the chairman to announce “remedies,” like suspension, for Kimmel’s comments.
“He threatens it. He says, ‘We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’” Sen. Cruz recalled Carr as warning, attempting to use a mobster’s accent. “And I gotta say that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar and going, “nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
“Let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘we don’t like what you, the media, have said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like, that will end up bad for conservatives,” Sen. Cruz said.
He explained that a future Democratic president would conservatives.
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