Brendan Carr

Brendan Carr

Brendan Thomas Carr (born January 5, 1979) is an American lawyer who has served as the chair of the Federal Communications Commission since 2025.

Quotes

2019

• Censoring lawful speech based on its content? I'm with the First Amendment. I'm a no.
  • 13 Feb 2019 tweet replying to Jessica Rosenworcel saying "nothing stops the ads for e-cigarettes, even if they are targeted at kids. The @FCC can help put a stop to this, and I think it should."

• The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the “public interest.”
  • 14 February 2019 tweet in response to 13 Feb 2019 article on USA Today by Jessica Rosenworcel a fellow Commissioner in the FCC
    • at this time Republican Ajit Pai was the Chair (2017-2021) while Carr was the Commissioner (2017+), Carr took over the position in 2025 from Democrat nominee Jessica Rosenworcel who served from 2021 to 2025.

2024

• Who, in your view, should have the power to draw the line between a “lie” and “free speech”? Government officials that want to stay in political power or the people that can hold them accountable ?
  • 5 September 2024 tweet

2025

• We at the FCC are going to enforce the public interest obligation, if there’s broadcasters out there that don’t like it, they can turn their license in to the FCC.
  ..
  This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
  They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.
  ..
  The FCC could make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core fundamental fact, a very important matter.
  ..
  Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it's time for them to step up and say this, you know, garbage to the extent that that's what comes down the pipe in the future isn't something that we think serves the needs of our local communities. But, but this sort of status quo is obviously not, not acceptable where we are.
  • 17 September 2025 interview with Benny Johnson

• When you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, um, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. Uh, as you've indicated, there are, y'know, avenues here for the FCC so there are some ways in which I need to be a little bit, uh, careful: because we could be called ultimately to be a judge on some of these claims that come up. But I don't think this is an isolated incident. You go back to Representative Swalwell, he had a tweet out last week, where he was saying that, y'know, emphasizing that Charlie Kirk's killer was "a straight white male from Republican family that voted for Donald Trump." In some quarters there's a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people.about the nature, as you indicated, one of the most significant, uh, newsworthy public interest acts that we've seen in a long time. In what appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person. If that's what happened here with his conduct, that's really really sick.
  • 17 September 2025 bold reported here by NBC News, from the video included in the above Benny Johnson tweet.

• There's actions we can take on licensed broadcasters. It's long past the time that...Comcast and Disney say 'We're not gonna run Kimmel anymore...because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibly of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC.
  • 17 September 2025 quoted by The Bulwark with accompanying video