00:00Another area of agreement between you and I is that Jimmy Kimball is angry, overtly partisan, and profoundly unfunny.
00:11I agree with you there, and I think the examples you laid out of weaponization during the Biden years are perfect examples.
00:18Another area of agreement between you and I is that Jimmy Kimball is angry, overtly partisan, and profoundly unfunny.
00:28That, sadly, is true for most late-night comedians today who seem to have been collectively broken by President Trump's election.
00:38Jimmy's remarks about Charlie Kirk were tasteless, and ABC and its affiliates would have been fully within their rights to fire him or simply to no longer air his program.
00:52That was their choice.
00:53But what government cannot do is force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly.
01:02Government officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech.
01:14This is why it was so insidious how the Biden administration jawboned social media into shutting down conservatives online over accurate information on COVID or voter fraud.
01:29My Democrat colleagues were persistently silent over that scandal, but I welcome them now having discovered the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.
01:41Democrat or Republican, we cannot have the government arbitrating truth or opinion.
01:52Mr. Chairman, my question is this, so long as there is a public interest standard, shouldn't it be understood to encompass robust First Amendment protections to ensure that the FCC cannot use it to chill speech?
02:10Mr. Yes, Senator, I agree with you there, and I think the examples you laid out of weaponization during the Biden years are perfect examples.
02:18The Fox case you mentioned was a renewal for a broadcast TV license, and petitioners sought to have the FCC not renew it based on content that aired on a separate cable channel.
02:30In the cable context, it's entirely different.
02:32There's no license.
02:33There's no public interest standard.
02:35So first and foremost, we have to make sure the FCC is hewing to precedent.
02:38Similarly, we saw Democrats in Congress write letters to cable companies pressuring them to drop Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax because they disagreed with the political perspectives of those cable channels.
02:50And there, again, it was cable.
02:52No broadcast license, no public interest standard.
02:55So the FCC has to write within the four corners of our precedents to be consistent with the Communications Act and the First Amendment concerns as well.
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