Senators Clash Over Big Tech ‘Jawboning’ and FCC Power

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2025 — Lawmakers clashed Wednesday over government influence on speech. 

Republicans accused the Biden administration of “jawboning” social media tech companies. Democrats said that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was doing exactly that to broadcasters right now.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., led the Senate Commerce Committee hearing in the absence of committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was not present at the hearing, a committee staffer confirmed.

Before becoming a senator, Schmitt had filed the lawsuit that became Murphy v. Missouri, a 2022 decision by the Supreme Court on the Biden administration’s alleged pressure campaign against social media platforms during COVID. As Missouri’s attorney general, he filed the case as Missouri v. Biden. 

Schmitt said Wednesday that the Biden administration’s activities constituted “one of the largest censorship operations in American history” – and that the administration worked through third parties to pressure and “jawbone Big Tech.”

The high court held 6-3 that the Biden administration’s critics lacked standing. Still, the case arrived at the high court after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an injunction forbidding federal agencies under the First Amendment from forcefully encouraging social media platforms to limit the spread of content on their platforms.

Journalist testifies about silencing

Journalist Alex Berenson testified that his 2021 Twitter ban followed direct White House outreach to the platform. He pointed to internal records in which a White House official privately asked, “why I was still being allowed to speak,” he said. “That, by itself, is a First Amendment violation.” 

Prior to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk acquisition of Twitter (now X) for $44 billion, Bernson sued Twitter and prevailed in getting his account unblocked.

Sean Davis, CEO of The Federalist, a conservative online news and commentary outlet, said his publication was targeted by a “government-funded censorship campaign.” 

“Our own government, secretly and without due process, charged us with thought crimes, convicted us, and sentenced The Federalist to death,” he told senators. The Federalist Editor Mollie Hemingway, a popular conservative commentator with 1.5 million X followers, sat behind Davis during the 113-minute hearing.

Coercion or persuasion?

Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor, said the term “jawboning” encompasses both coercion, when officials use threats to suppress speech, and persuasion, when they urge companies to act voluntarily. He said the distinction is difficult to draw because requests that look harmless on paper can feel coercive when they come from officials with authority over the industry.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., returned her “jawboning” fire against the FCC. She accused Brendan Carr, appointed agency chairman by President Donald Trump, of crossing the line by using his post to pressure broadcasters. 

Carr’s attack on ABC over a Jimmy Kimmel monologue was “exactly the kind of political interference the First Amendment was designed to prevent,” she said. 

“If Chairman Carr can threaten one network over a single late-night host, what kind of message does that send to local broadcasters in Seattle or Houston?”

What’s the threat to freedom of speech?

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said Republicans had “wasted an obscene amount of time and resources” pursuing a censorship theory “repeatedly proven false.”

“The Supreme Court shot down their big lawsuit against the Biden administration in a six-to-three vote,” Markey said. “Strike one, strike two, strike three - you’re out, Republican theory of censorship.” 

Markey contrasted that with what he called “the Mafia-boss threats from Brendan Carr at the FCC to Disney and ABC,” and accused Trump and Carr of “waging a war on free speech this country hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era.” 

Cruz, absent from the hearing, on Sept. 18 joined with Democrats who had strongly criticized Carr for his comments about Kimmel's show. Cruz likened Carr’s comments to a mafia shakedown.

Who’s against news distortion?

The Democratic senators have in the past encouraged investigations of “news distortion.” 

In 2018, Cantwell co-signed a letter to then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai demanding an investigation of Sinclair Inc., a major TV station owner, for news distortion. Carr, in his attack on ABC and Kimmel, alleged “news distortion” when Kimmel insinuated that Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin was a MAGA Trump supporter after evidence suggested the opposite.

Markey also co-signed the 2018 letter to Pai about Sinclair, which had asked local station anchors to read a script about the company’s approach to news coverage.