The influential Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and one of the Republican Party’s most prominent politicians on Capitol Hill has fired a warning shot at the head of the Federal Communications Commission, challenging FCC Chairman Brendan Carr‘s belief that public interest concerns are what could lead to investigations by the FCC into comments made by late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel regarding late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) made the comments on Friday’s episode of the iHeartMedia–distributed Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast, which the Canada-born Senator from Texas co-hosts with WREC-AM in Memphis host Ben Ferguson.
Joking that he was one of Cruz’s “best friends” and that he’d have a lot more time to play basketball with Kimmel, Cruz responded to Ferguson’s comments by blunting stating that the indefinite suspension of the the host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! “is a fantastic thing. I think Jimmy Kimmel has been putting out garbage for a long, long time. But there are real questions as to why ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel and what the role was of the FCC. The FCC threatened to revoke ABC’s licenses and we’re going to break down the First Amendment implications of that.”
Those comments attracted global attention of the news media, as Cruz broke from the Trump Administration by taking a position that Democrats across the aisle may be vociferously applauding. Specifically, Cruz believes the FCC’s possible involvement raises First Amendment concerns.
Why? While Carr suggested broadcasters must act in the “public interest” and hinted at consequences for Kimmel’s comments, Cruz and Ferguson strongly criticized the idea of government threats against speech. And, they warned that allowing the FCC to police political content would set a dangerous precedent, especially against conservatives in the future.
Ferguson opened the conversation by declaring, “I do not want anybody getting censored,” explaining that with the ebbs and flows of politics, “I don’t like people tipping the scales and pushing too hard, because if we do it, they are going to do it when they get back in power … it will happen to conservatives and happen ten times harder than what we are talking about right now.”
Cruz is on the same page. “Brendan Carr did an interview with Benny Johnson but he leaned in hard on Jimmy Kimmel and threatened government retaliation for what Kimmel said,” Cruz said at the :22 mark of the podcast, in which he shared Carr’s comments made on The Benny Show, a Cumulus-distributed on-demand audio show. During that interview, Carr explained why invigorating the “public interest” obligation is important for broadcasters, who remain unique because they use FCC-regulated licenses.
Concluding his comments to Johnson regarding Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, Carr said, “The FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at. We may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.”
Cruz’s reply? “No, no, no, no, no.” Noting the likes Carr and works closely with him, Cruz explained, “What he said there is dangerous as hell.”
Ferguson asked Cruz to explain his answer. He acquiesced, stating, “What [Carr] is saying is that Jimmy Kimmel was lying, and that is true, but that his lying to the American people was not in the public interest and so he threatens explicitly, ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license and take them off the air so they can not broadcast anymore.'”
Cruz then likens Carr’s threat that “we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way” as akin to a line from the classic Mafia film Goodfellas. “If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media have said and we are going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”
It reminds Cruz of the “ring of power” from the Lord of the Rings series. “We shouldn’t be using government power to force him off air,” he concluded. “That’s a real mistake.”
BUSINESS DECISIONS VERSUS POLITICAL POSTURING
With Ferguson noting “misinformation” and “a ton of lies” shroud the facts tied to the September 10 assassination of Kirk at a Utah speaking event, Kimmel got in trouble “because he lied” about the suspect’s motives by saying he was a “MAGA” supporter and mischaracterized President Trump’s grieving of Kirk’s murder. “It is not because of free speech, which some people have complicated this into a free speech issue,” Ferguson believes. “He can say whatever the hell he wants. It doesn’t mean you’re going to keep your job.”
Cruz then took the mic by saying Kimmel “had become profoundly unfunny,” and that “there was a time, 15 years ago, that he was a talented comedian. He started hosting The Man Show with Adam Carolla, and that’s how he got a late-night gig.” Cruz even recalled how he appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! twice. Then Donald Trump was elected U.S. President, and it “broke late-night comedy,” Cruz said. “Jimmy Kimmel, just like Stephen Colbert, his brain melted when Donald Trump came into the White House, and [Jimmy Kimmel Live!] is now unwatchable and the vast America just doesn’t watch it anymore.”
Cruz then took aim at how Jimmy Kimmel Live! had fewer viewers on ABC than Verdict with Ted Cruz had listeners as an audio podcast. In the Adults 18-49 demographic, Kimmel was down 15% in August 2025 to 129,000, Cruz added. From a salary standpoint, Kimmel had lost even more viewers than Colbert, and thus losing ABC even more money than Colbert was for CBS. Add in the bitter and nasty attitude and lie about Charlie Kirk, and this refutes the argument that Kimmel’s indefinite suspension was part of a “cancel culture.” For Ferguson and Cruz, this was a smart business decision, as they replayed the monologue that got Kimmel in trouble some 12 minutes into the podcast.
