Vice President JD Vance has issued a new threat against major TV networks. He questioned whether some broadcasters should even have licenses. Vance dismissed the protests about free speech that followed ABC’s temporary suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! due to threats from Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr in an interview with Laura Ingraham of Fox News on Thursday.
“I’d like them to tell me exactly what Brendan Carr did to have Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air,” Vance said. “I think that Brendan Carr put out a couple of tweets or a couple of truths, or whatever he did, that does not constitute government coercion.”
However, it was more than just a few tweets. Carr argued that the FCC could cancel ABC’s broadcasting license due to a joke the host made about Charlie Kirk’s assassin just hours before ABC fired Kimmel last week.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Vance told Ingraham, “These broadcast companies—ABC, NBC, CBS—they enjoy the public airwaves because they serve the public interest.” He was repeating a point that Carr used to pressure ABC to “take action” on Jimmy Kimmel. “So I actually think that we should be having a conversation about whether these companies are serving the public interest,” he said.
While cable channels like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are not required to obtain licenses from the federal government, broadcast stations affiliated with or owned by networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS need to.
According to the FCC’s website, the agency has the authority to regulate broadcasting and mandates that networks “operate their station in the ‘public interest, convenience, and necessity’ by law.”
Last week, President Donald Trump complained that about 97% of networks are against him, and claimed, “I think maybe their license should be taken away.”
He complained that “When you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”
Vance expressed his doubts about whether the networks’ merit federal licenses are “actually totally separate from the Jimmy Kimmel issue because nothing happened to him. He’s currently on the air.”
Kirk’s close friend, the 41-year-old vice president, urged Kimmel to apologize to Erika, the late right-wing activist’s wife, and “to all of the people that he slandered,” claiming that the presenter had blamed Kirk’s death on “right-wing America.”
In his September 15 monologue, Kimmel, whose program resumed airing on Tuesday, had implied that Kirk’s alleged killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was associated with the “MAGA gang.”
