Newly installed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is weeding out diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and leftist priorities at the agency, vowing to restore an “even-handed application of the law” with media companies.
Carr spoke to Morning Wire for a special weekend episode, telling Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley that the FCC will seek to return to “fair and equal treatment.” So far, under Carr’s direction, the agency has launched investigations into Comcast and NBC for their DEI practices.
“Many on the left are warning that Trump is bullying media outlets and he’s forcing journalists to tone down their coverage of his administration through his actions. How do you see it?” Bickley asked Carr.
“I think we’re seeing an even-handed application of the law,” Carr said. “There’s a quote from Thomas Sowell that I’ll change a little bit, but, you know, whenever people have benefited from discriminatory government practices, even-handed treatment then itself, it feels like discrimination to them.”
Carr, who has been an FCC commissioner for eight years, added that under the Biden administration, the agency gave special treatment to leftists, such as groups aligned with billionaire George Soros while revoking a deal with billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk.
“We had this deal with Elon Musk where we were gonna provide high-speed internet to hundreds of thousands of rural Americans for pennies on the dollar. And that was abruptly revoked by the FCC. And what I said at the time was plainly political retribution against Elon Musk,” Carr said. “Or flash-forward to the other side of the coin, where a George Soros-aligned group sought to get special, streamlined, expedited treatment from the FCC to obtain 200 radio stations – and the FCC created a special unprecedented Soros shortcut.”
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“My view is everyone gets a fair shake at the FCC now, and we’re just going to call balls and strikes,” he added.
The new FCC chair also discussed his agency’s investigation into Comcast’s alleged “illegal DEI discrimination.” Carr told Morning Wire that President Trump is “leading the country away from this really dark period of this scourge,” adding that following Trump’s executive orders ending DEI in the federal government, the FCC has ended its promotion of the leftist policies.
“I gotta tell you, people would be shocked if they knew how much both money and time and resources their federal government was spending on DEI,” Carr said. “The FCC alone, which is roughly a 350 to 400 million [dollars] a year agency, we were spending millions of dollars promoting DEI. It was in our budget. We had it listed as our number two strategic priority, and we were just way off course in terms of core missions.”
“Again, we want equality, we want fairness, we want everyone in this country to have a fair shot, we want merit to rise to the top,” he continued. “And maybe there are things that people are doing under the term DEI that are totally appropriate, but that’s exactly what we’re going to get to the bottom of here.”
