Brendan Carr speaks at the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications Technology hearing on “Connecting America.”
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President-elect Donald Trump said in a statement Sunday that he will nominate Brendan Carr, a critic of the Biden administration’s communications policies and Big Tech, to chair the Federal Communications Commission.
Mr. Carr, 45, is currently the top Republican at the FCC, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.
He weighed in on the FCC’s decision not to finalize nearly $900 million in broadband subsidies for Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet unit Starlink, the Commerce Department’s $42 billion broadband infrastructure plan, and President Joe Biden’s The policy has been harshly criticized.
Last week, Carr wrote a letter to meta facebook, alphabet google, apple and microsoft He said he had taken steps to censor Americans. Carr said Sunday that the FCC must “restore the free speech rights of ordinary Americans.”
The president-elect despised the following actions: disney’s ABC, comcast’s NBC and Paramount Global Inc. CBS has indicated it could lose its FCC license for various actions. President Trump also sued CBS over his “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Kerr criticized NBC for having Harris appear on “Saturday Night Live” just before the election.
During his first term, President Trump asked the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses, but then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai rejected the idea, saying, “The FCC does not have the authority to revoke broadcast station licenses based on content.” did.
The FCC issues eight-year licenses to individual stations, not broadcast networks.
In 2022, Kerr, a strong critic of China, visited Taiwan for the first time as an FCC commissioner. He has supported the FCC’s tough stance on Chinese carriers.
Carr strongly opposed the FCC’s April decision to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules that were repealed during the first Trump administration. Biden FCC rules have been put on hold by a federal appeals court.
President Trump appointed Carr to the FCC in January 2017 during his first administration, after serving as the agency’s general counsel.
For the next administration to take full control of the agency, it will need to nominate a Republican to the five-member commission.
Trump said in a statement that Carr is “a free speech fighter who has fought against restrictive laws that stifle the freedoms of the American people and stifle the economy.”
