Trouble is coming…

Before ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel would return to his show on Tuesday, FCC chairman Brendan Carr sought to explain what he meant last week when he warned ABC and its stations that “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” in addressing the late-night host’s remarks about the suspect in Charlie Kirk‘s assassination.

Brendan Carr at the Concordia Summit inPhoto by John Lamparski/Getty Images for Concordia Annual Summit

At the Concordia Summit in New York on Monday morning, Carr denied he had threatened to pull licenses of ABC stations if they did not fire Kimmel. He said that “did not happen in any way, shape or form.”

Carr said that “what I spoke about last week is that when concerns are raised about news distortion … there’s an easy way for parties to address that and work that out. In the main, that takes place between local television stations that are licensed by the FCC and what we call national programmers like Disney. They work that out, and there doesn’t need to be any involvement of the FCC.”

He added: “Now, if they don’t, there’s a way that is not as easy, which is someone can file a complaint at the FCC, and then the FCC, by law, as set up by Congress, has to adjudicate that complaint. And what I’ve been very clear in the context of the Kimmel episode, is the FCC, and myself in particular, have expressed no view on the ultimate merits.”

On his late-night show earlier last week, Kimmel said, “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.” Watch Kimmel’s comments here.

Later in the week, Carr, appearing on Benny Johnson’s podcast, called Kimmel’s remark “some of the sickest conduct possible.”

Carr said: “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr seemed to suggest remedies for ABC, or ways that they could avoid a lengthy proceeding. He said: “Look, there’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. You could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. Again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we can look at. We may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.”

In the podcast interview, though, Carr also brought up the possible revocation of licenses. He said that “its time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, “Listen, we’re going to pre-empt, we’re not going to run Kimmel anymore, and so you straighten this out because we, licensed broadcasters are running into the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”

Hours later, Nexstar stations said that they were pulling Kimmel “for the foreseeable future.” Soon after, ABC announced that it was pulling the show indefinitely. After a backlash that the network had caved to pressure from the Trump administration, the network announced that Kimmel would return on Tuesday.

In his Monday remarks, Carr referred to the possibility of the FCC reviewing a news-distortion complaint against ABC stations over Kimmel. The conservative group Center for American Rights did just that on Wednesday, the same day as Kimmel’s suspension.

The FCC has a news-distortion policy, but the agency cautions that its authority to take action on complaints is “narrow” — and it rarely has. “The FCC will only investigate claims that include evidence showing that the broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners,” the agency says. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is a talk show, not a news programming, although the host was commenting on current events.

Carr also criticized Democrats on Capitol Hill, pointing out their past efforts to go after Sinclair Broadcast Group over its program content. He was referring to a letter that Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and other senators sent to then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to “investigate Sinclair’s news activities to determine if it conforms to the public interest.” They raised concerns about the uniform scripting of news programs across Sinclair stations and whether that amounted to news distortion.

Carr said that there were “Democrats out there that are engaged in a campaign or projections and distortion, and distortion is they are completely misrepresenting the work of the FCC and what we’ve been doing.”

But some Republicans also have been critical of Carr’s comments, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) calling them “right out of Goodfellas.“ On his podcast last week, Cruz also said that he interpreted Carr as threatening “to cancel ABC’s license.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also weighed in on Monday afternoon, posting on X, “Well, my colleague, Ted Cruz, said it looked just like Goodfellas. As a First Amendment guy, myself, I think he’s probably got it right. You don’t have to like what somebody says on TV to agree that the government shouldn’t be getting involved here.”

Carr also seemed to celebrate Kimmel’s suspension. On X, amid the news on Wednesday of the ABC suspension, Carr thanked Nexstar for “doing the right thing” and Sinclair for “taking quick action.” He responded to CNN’s Brian Stelter with a GIF of characters from The Office pumping their hands in the air in exultation.