Democrats are vowing to break up media companies that kowtowed to Trump if they take back power.

Earlier this week, comedian Jimmy Kimmel delivered his monologue, as he does at the beginning of every episode of his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He focused on the reaction to the assassination of conservative media figure Charlie Kirk, and claimed that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

In addition to not being very funny, the observation rested on a false assumption—that the presumed killer, 22-year-old Utah man Tyler Robinson, is a conservative. Incorrect notions about the suspect’s political tribe have remained enduringly popular in liberal media circles; one of the top mainstream liberal Substack writers, Heather Cox Richardson, wrote earlier this week that the motive of the alleged shooter “remains unclear.” This is simply not true: Interviews with Robinson’s friends and family members, as well as text messages between Robinson and his roommate—his transgender romantic partner—paint a clear portrait of a man who found Kirk’s conservative views “harmful.” It’s fine to leave room for new details that further elucidates or complicates this picture, but for now the totality of the available information suggests an essentially left-wing motivation.

While Kimmel is a comedian rather than a newscaster, given how paranoid the mainstream media is about the spread of so-called misinformation, the criticism of Kimmel on this subject was well-deserved. And I had been planning to criticize him in this newsletter all week.

Unfortunately, the story no longer ends there.

Brendan Carr, chair of Federal Communications Commission (FCC), weighed in on the matter; not only did he criticize what Kimmel had to say, he also implicitly threatened the broadcasters. (Kimmel’s show appears on ABC.)

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Carr during an appearance on conservative influencer Benny Johnson’s podcast. “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.”

This was not an idle threat. The FCC licenses broadcast channels, and can fine them or even take them off the air. Moreover, the FCC oversees mergers of companies in the communications space. Nexstar Media, which owns many of the ABC local affiliate stations that air Kimmel, is attempting to acquire Tegna Inc., a rival firm; the FCC needs to okay the deal. There’s a lot at stake, and FCC can make life very difficult for companies that defy it.

And so, on Wednesday night, both Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group—another major telecommunications company—informed ABC that they would not air Kimmel on their affiliate stations. ABC then opted to place the show on indefinite hiatus. (Disclaimer: Nexstar owns Rising, the news show I host for The Hill.)

Robby Soave, Reason Magazine