Senate Commerce Schedules FCC Oversight Hearing

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2025 – Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr will have to answer to senators on the Commerce committee next month amid criticism that he used his post to pressure a broadcaster.

Led in part by his own party ally, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who has accused Carr of “dangerous” overreach, the session was expected to revisit Carr’s perceived threats to broadcast licensees over content aired on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! 

The Senate Commerce Committee announced Monday it will hold the FCC oversight hearing on Dec. 17, where Carr and Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty are all scheduled to testify. 

The session follows weeks of bipartisan concern over Carr’s perceived threats to broadcast licensees after his remarks were linked to ABC’s brief suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in September. 

Carr, a Republican appointee of President Donald Trump, warned ABC and its parent company, Disney, that the network could “do this the easy way or the hard way” after Kimmel commented on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a podcast interview, Carr characterized Kimmel’s remarks as “truly sick”, and said that Disney and ABC should hold Kimmel accountable or face punishment.

"This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

Following Carr’s remarks, several ABC affiliates, including Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Inc., pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from their schedules, drawing outrage across party lines. 

The controversy stemmed from Kimmel’s Sept. 15 broadcast, when he said that President Trump’s supporters were trying to “score political points” by portraying Kirk’s accused killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, as a left-wing radical, and characterizing Robinson as “anything other than one of them.”

'Dangerous as hell,' said Cruz

Cruz, chairman of the Senate Commerce committee and one of Trump’s closest allies, said Carr’s behavior “puts government in the business of deciding which speech it likes and what it will punish,” calling the comments “dangerous as hell.”

Other Republicans have chimed in to support Cruz since. They included: Sens. Rand Paul, Ky., Todd Young, Ind., Dave McCormick, Pa., Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, Jerry Moran, Kan., and Rep. Brett Guthrie, Ky.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Maria Cantwell, Wash., the Commerce committee’s ranking member, led her party on Sept. 19 in calling for Carr to appear before the panel.

Both Carr and Trusty have since characterized the affiliates’ decisions to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! as business judgments made independently by the stations.

It will be the first time in more than five years that all FCC commissioners have appeared together before the Senate Commerce committee, which last held a full FCC oversight hearing on June 24, 2020, under then Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss.