Brendan Carr has served as an FCC commissioner since 2017 and has chaired the commission since January 2025. In his tenure as FCC chair, Carr has turned a once-nonpoliticized FCC into a licensing power laser against broadcasters who displease Trump. Carr has threatened television networks, comedians, and newsrooms alike.
Biography
Born Jan. 5, 1979, in Washington, D.C., Carr earned his B.A. from Georgetown University in 2001 and received his J.D. from Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in 2005.
Legal Experience
Upon law school graduation, Carr was an associate at Wiley Rein, practicing in its appellate, litigation, and telecommunications groups. He took a break from the firm to clerk for Judge Dennis Shedd on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2008 to 2009, returning to Wiley Rein from 2009 to 2012. In 2012, Carr joined the FCC, serving first as an attorney-advisor with the FCC’s office of general counsel before later serving as a legal advisor to Commissioner Ajit Pai. In 2017, Carr became the FCC’s general counsel before getting confirmed by the Senate to serve as a commissioner, first in 2017, and most recently in September 2023.
Loyalty to Trump
In recent years, Carr has started showing his unabashed loyalty to Trump and his far-right agenda through a series of appearances, actions, and statements. First, Carr authored the FCC chapter of Project 2025. And while the FCC has historically always been considered a nonpolitical independent agency, in December 2025, Carr testified that the FCC is “not formally an independent agency” and that the president could fire him. Unsurprisingly, Carr appeared alongside Trump in an October 2026 campaign rally for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) in Alaska.
Threatening Broadcasters and Comedians
As FCC chair, Carr has made a number of seemingly politically motivated attacks against perceived enemies of the Trump administration. In September 2025, Carr pressured ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s show and statements Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s death. As FCC chair, Carr warned, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” His threat to ABC was so far out of bounds that even Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called it “dangerous as hell.” On his podcast, Cruz said, “I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.” In April 2026, the FCC ordered ABC’s eight owned stations to file early license renewals. That order came amid renewed Trump pressure over a Kimmel joke, though the order itself cites an investigation. A month earlier, during coverage of the Iran war, Carr warned broadcasters running “hoaxes” that “they will lose their licenses.”
Policing the News and DEI policies
As FCC Chair, Carr also revived complaints against CBS, ABC, and NBC that his predecessor had dismissed, including unsubstantiated allegations of news distortion by CBS and ABC and equal-time violations by NBC. He then approved the Paramount-Skydance merger on July 24, 2025, weeks after Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement with Trump over 60 Minutes, with a CBS ombudsman and no-DEI commitments attached.
In January 2026, the FCC issued guidance on how equal-time rules apply to talk shows, then opened a probe of The View over its interview with Senate candidate James Talarico. Carr’s FCC also investigated NPR and PBS member stations and San Francisco’s KCBS over its reporting on ICE.
The FCC similarly opened DEI investigations into Comcast and Verizon. Verizon and T-Mobile both won approval for their deals after dropping DEI programs.
Ethics Complaints
In July 2026, CREW and Democracy Defenders Fund filed ethics complaints over public media reports that Carr had accepted tickets from Paramount worth more than $75,000 to attend the December 2025 Kennedy Center Honors. According to the complaint, Carr and his wife attended the event in a private skybox with Paramount’s CEO in seats valued at $125,000 per ticket.