Trump FCC Chair Floats Shutting Down CBS

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FCC head Brendan Carr, who was handpicked by Donald Trump, recently hinted at taking away CBS's broadcast license in an interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen on Monday, May 5.

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Donald Trump is currently suing CBS over its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which the president believes was edited to make the vice president more palatable to voters.
FCC head Brendan Carr hinted at penalizing CBS for the network's apparent Harris favoritism, which he views as a violation of the FCC's public interest obligation requiring broadcast stations using public airwaves to act in the best interest of the general public.

"Over the years, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing that public interest obligation. I think the FCC should do what Congress wants us to do and enforce those laws. We're going to see where this investigation goes," he said.

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"So are you threatening to pull their license? Wouldn't that be a pretty drastic step?" Sara Eisen asked Brenan Carr.
"Well, it's not a threat, that's a penalty that is in the Communications Act," he replied.

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Despite the push for the FCC to take action against CBS and other networks, it's been several years since the agency has attempted to take on a mainstream media outlet.
"But when was the last time the FCC pulled a broadcast license?" Sara Eisen asked Brendan Carr.
"It's been a long time, and I think that's part of the issue. If you step back, you know, trust in the national mainstream media is at an absolute low right. That's not just my view. Jeff Bezos himself did an op-ed where he said that," Carr replied.

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Brendan Carr later hinted at Americans turning to local news sources over mainstream media outlets.
"What's really interesting is that actually local stations, local TV stations, have a lot of trust," he said. "And so the agenda that I'm trying to run at the FCC is to empower those actual local television stations to serve the public interest."
"Because what we've seen is you've got national news media, ABC, NBC, CBS, and they're exercising more and more control over those local TV stations," Carr continued. "I don't think that's a good thing for the country, so we're trying to reverse that."
The White House expressed its support for Carr's statement by tweeting a clip from his interview.