It’s the FCC as long as he makes important decisions there. There is no way you can honestly say that he wouldn’t influence others there, and the businesses who are currently facing FCC approval would have to take that influence into consideration or ask whether the level of corruption on display isn’t unique to him.

Think about it this way: if a police officer came by your business and suggested that a donation to their annual ball might lead to faster response if you called 911, would you immediately conclude that the rest of the force would strongly condemn that appearance of corruption or would the mere fact that they were comfortable saying it make you worry that the sentiment was shared by other officers?

Part of what the current administration has been doing is normalizing levels of politicization and corruption which would previously have been unthinkable in modern America. Actions like this are considered in light of the broader context where the President is openly shaking down businesses and the AG has made it clear that they’re his personal lawyer first and the nation’s top law enforcement official only to the extent that it serves his goals.

That’s probably why they didn’t put up a fight but it doesn’t cancel out the illegality of the threat. If the local mob boss shows up and says “nice business, it’d be a shame if something happened to it” that’s still extortion even if you decide it was losing money and walk away.

No. "If he were more profitable, his company would have spent money on a legal defense instead" is not a valid counterargument to "It is bad that the government threatened a company into cancelling a show because they criticized a friend of the regime."

Ratings didn’t help Colbert, though..

> Yes but you're not a mind reader…

Is your position that no one can ever infer the intent behind someone’s actions unless you can read their mind?

The threat against Australia was fascinating.. I guess Trump figured out "tariffs" is a big appendage like the one he never has, but now can swing around, and "you better be nice, or I'm going to do to your country what I did to the numerous amounts of women in my life...".

That does makes sense considering the profile of the average person who still watches broadcast tv these. There is simply no demand for non-garbage content there.

The key thing is that Nexstar’s owners are hoping to make a lot of money from a merger which the FCC is currently ruling on. That makes threats from the FCC considerably more real:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/nexstar-tegna-fcc...

In fact, the affiliates are exactly who Brendan Carr threatened:

> “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

> Carr suggested that the FCC could pursue news distortion allegations against local licensees.

> “Frankly I think it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney, and say ’We are going to preempt — we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out,’” he said. “It’s time for them to step up and say this garbage — to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future — isn’t something that serves the needs of our local communities.”

(for those that don't know, ABC doesn't have an FCC license, broadcasting stations (affiliates) do, so that's exactly who he's using his unconstitutional leverage over)

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/brendan-carr-abc-fcc-jimmy-...

Cool, so did the FCC apply pressure using government power in the attempt to achieve this situation?

Yes or no?

You don’t need to answer as that’s rhetorical. It’s obvious the answer is yes. Democratic governments try to avoid making public statements like that because the general public cannot tell if it was because of the government or a happy coincidence that the party being pressured just happened to comply. Because it can’t be discerned even the appearance of using government power like that degrades the rule of law