Ted Cruz Slams FCC’s Action Against ABC Amid Kimmel Controversy: ‘Not Government’s Job to Censor Speech’

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz says FCC chairman Brendan Carr is overstepping after the regulator demanded that Disney file for an early license renewal of ABC’s eight local broadcast stations.

“It is not government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News after Carr requested that the move be made within 30 days.

The FCC’s request comes after ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel is once again in the Trump administration’s crosshairs for a joke he made about First Lady Melania Trump following an assassination attempt against the president at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

This is not the first time Cruz has sparred with Carr over the FCC. When Kimmel was temporarily pulled off the air last year following the FCC chair’s threat to “do this the easy way or the hard way” in response to comments the late night host made about Charlie Kirk, Cruz called Carr’s remarks and comments “dangerous as hell.”

“That’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” he added at the time.

More to come…