The MAGA GOP is running scared and pulling out every trick in the book they could find to defend poor, belittled, and bedazzled Donald Trump so now they are claiming NBC could have its license revoked for having Kamala Harris on SNL for under two minutes.
Brendan Carr was appointed Chairman by Donald Trump in 2017. He’s also an author of a section in Project 2025. Carr joined the Queen of MAGA, Maria Bartiromo and turned the FCC guidelines into a pretzel to ratchet up more grievances for poor Donald Trump.
Carr attacked NBC for failing to give Trump equal time on SNL.
“[NBC] tried to jam the opposing candidates and they thought they could get away with it,” Carr said.
Carr then claimed the NBC violated the rights of Jill Stein, and RFK Jr. too. That’s why his MAGA interpretation of the rules are false.
BARTIROMO:What should be the, you know, the ramification here?
CARR: Yeah, we need to keep every single remedy on the table.
I mean, one of the remedies the FC has ultimately would be license revocation if we find that it’s egregious, and we’ll see what they have to say about this.
But it needs to deter this type of conduct, because when you’re 50 hours before the opening of Election Day, the whole purpose of this rule is to give people a fair shot. Broadcasters are in a unique position they have a privilege to use the airwaves they have to operate in the public interest…
That’s not what the law states. The Hollywood Reporter explains:
The FCC’s equal time rule requires American radio and television stations to offer equal time to rival political candidates. However, the burden falls on the candidates to request those equal opportunities, and the agency’s policy on the rule states: “Equal opportunities generally means providing comparable time and placement to opposing candidates; it does not require a station to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate.”
Exactly. But who cares about the actual rules, right Brendan?
As Free Press Action explained via email:
“It’s bizarre that a sitting FCC commissioner would engage in such a blatant and wrongheaded attempt to curry favor with a presidential candidate. But this is just the sort of reckless behavior we’ve come to expect from Brendan Carr. You’d expect an FCC commissioner to be familiar with his own agency’s regulations. Instead Carr seems willing to concoct falsehoods if it means he’ll get noticed by the former president.
“It’s no secret around Washington that Carr is desperate to become the FCC chair should Trump be elected president. First Carr wrote a chapter in the widely discredited policy platform for Project 2025, a far-right masterplan to disassemble U.S. democracy. Now he’s making grossly inaccurate claims about communications law thinking it might win him points with the former president.
“Carr should actually read the regulations on which the equal time rule is based. According to those rules, former President Trump is welcome to seek equal time from NBC broadcast stations, though to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t done so. It’s no surprise to hear many candidates making outlandish and inaccurate claims during election season, but we should expect our purportedly independent regulators to know better.”
NBC has responded by giving “equal time” to Trump. Under two minutes. End of story.
Update: NBC stations ARE providing Trump with equal time, per the FCC’s regulations, in the wake of the Harris cameo on “SNL” last night. A direct-to-camera appeal from Trump to “go and vote” aired during this evening’s NASCAR post-race show. pic.twitter.com/w3bVv9vP6u
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 4, 2024
