Prominent Conservative Endorses Carr for FCC Chairman
Next FCC Chair must restore public trust and protect free speech, Brent Bozell said
Ari Bertenthal
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2024 – A prominent conservative free speech activist has endorsed Republican Brendan Carr for Federal Communications Commission Chairman in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
Brent Bozell – Founder and President of the Media Research Center headquartered in Herndon, Va. and a scion of the conservative Buckley family – endorsed Carr for the top job in a long, 300-word statement Friday.
Bozell asserted that Carr was the right man for the job, mentioning that Carr would defend freedom of speech.
“When Biden’s FCC decided to retaliate against Starlink because Elon Musk refused to censor Biden’s political opponents, Brendan Carr fought back,” Bozell said. “It is imperative that the next FCC chairman is committed to restoring the public’s trust, increasing telecommunications access for all communities and protecting the fundamental right to free speech.”
Trump has not expressed a preference for the FCC job, but Carr has been viewed as the front runner for many months.
Last December, the FCC opted to withhold $885.5 million in Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) support for Starlink won at auction in 2020.
The agency claimed the company "had not shown that it was reasonably capable of fulfilling RDOF’s requirements to deploy a network of the scope, scale, and size required to serve the 642,925 model locations in 35 states for which it was the winning bidder. "
Starlink, with 6,500 satellites deployed in low Earth orbit, has about 4 million subscribers globally.
Bozell also praised Carr for recognizing that “a small group of some of the world’s most powerful corporations exercise complete control over [the] public square" – a direct shot at Big Tech.
"As chair, Brendan Carr can be counted on to fix this," Bozell said.
Two days ago, Carr said on his X account, "The censorship cartel must be smashed into a billion pieces. Everyday Americans must have the freedom to fully exercise their First Amendment rights."
Bozell alleged that the FCC under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had been weaponized to target political opponents of the Biden administration. He claimed that President-elect Trump could address this by placing Carr at the helm of the FCC.
Rosenworcel has vigorously defended the agency's work in testimony on Capitol Hill and in federal courtrooms around the country.
As leader of the MRC, Bozell has spent decades arguing against what the group calls liberal media bias.
Bozell, 69, is the nephew of National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. and U.S. Sen. James L. Buckley, Conservative-N.Y., both deceased. James Buckley, appointed by President Reagan in 1985, served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit until taking senior status in 1996.
Bozell’s son, Brent Bozell IV, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in May for taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot that breached the U.S. Capitol.
