This is how we get media coverage that helps us!
| DEAN OBEIDALLAH SEP 21, 2025 |
Let me address something right off the bat before the comments section for this article are flooded with people stating the obvious. Yes, I know that Democrats don’t have the votes to impeach FCC chair Brendan Carr in the House—and certainly don’t have the 67 votes in the Senate to remove him.
The reason Democrats must loudly and repeatedly call for Carr’s impeachment for his unconstitutional and illegal pressuring of ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel is to continue to drive home the point that Trump and his regime are a dangerous threat to our freedoms. This is how we get press that helps us heading into 2026.
As a reminder, the House GOP used the threat and impeachment of Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over border security to further the media narratives they wanted to amplify heading into the 2024 election. House Republicans knew that they didn’t have the votes in the Senate to remove him, but they were able to use the threat of impeachment in the media to hammer Democrats on immigration and the border.
Ultimately, the impeachment articles that had been approved by the House GOP were dismissed by the then Democratically controlled Senate in April 2024 after a few hours of debate. However, not before the House GOP garnered a tsunami of media attention one the issue that became one of the key reasons Trump won in 2024.
But what makes the House Democrats mission here in pursuing the impeachment of Carr different than the BS of the House GOP with Mayorkas is that Carr violated the Constitution and the law. In other words, it’s not only merited, it’s demanded!
Carr—one of the authors of Project 2025—has repeatedly abused his power as FCC chair during Trump’s first nine months. As I wrote about back in February, Carr was already weaponizing the FCC to target media outlets viewed as critical of Trump. Within weeks in office, he began targeting PBS and NPR for investigations and demanded they lose funding in an effort to bully them into changing their content.
Carr also reinstated three complaints made by the Trump loving “Center for American Rights” against ABC, CBS and NBC which had been deemed frivolous in the past. There had been another complaint versus Fox News for lying on air about the 2020 election, but Carr, of course, did not reinstate that one.
In response, Former FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel—who served as chair immediately before Carr—warned that Carr is trying “to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment.” She rightly added that the FCC “should not be the president’s speech police.” But that is exactly what Carr and Trump wanted it to be.
Carr—again even before the Kimmel incident—utilized the FCC to pressure CBS to settle with Trump over his BS lawsuit that “60 Minutes” had engaged in some type of “election interference” by opening an investigation into the network. And it worked. In July, CBS paid Trump $16 million to settle that lawsuit.
And in July, we learned CBS was ending Stephen Colbert’s show—a longtime critic of Trump. There is little doubt the termination of Colbert’s show while Carr was considering a merger between CBS’s parent company and Skydance was a way to incentivize Trump to approve the merger. And weeks later, Carr’s FCC did approve that very merger.
How did Carr respond to Colbert being cancelled? He took a victory lap on CNBC defending it and warning that other late night hosts also need a “course correction.”
That brings us to Carr last week openly demanding that ABC/Disney punish Kimmel for a joke that mocked Trump and MAGA or suffer the wrath of the FCC. On Wednesday, Carr stated on a popular MAGA podcast point blank that at a minimum he wanted to see a “suspension” of Kimmel over the joke.
Then Carr showed us what abuse of power looks like when he threatened ABC, declaring, “I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” He then laid out the options for ABC: “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.”
There is no need for any speculation here. Carr threatened ABC to either suspend Kimmel for a joke that he and MAGA did not approve of or the FCC was going to use its vast powers to punish the network.
Even Carr’s spin that Kimmel said something factually inaccurate about the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk is not actionable by the FCC under federal law. Kimmel was giving his opinion—which is protected speech—and falsehoods are only actionable by the FCC per federal law if knowingly made and part of news programing. Kimmel is a comedian—not a news anchor!
That is why FCC commissioner Ana Gomez—a Democrat—on Wednesday wrote in response to Carr remarks that, “This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression.” And organizations that advocate for free speech have slammed Carr’s actions as being unconstitutional.
What Carr did was not just take a page form the fascist playbook, it’s an impeachable offence. This is without a doubt “abuse of power” that has been the basis to impeach federal officials in the past. As a reminder, in 2019, Trump was impeached for “abuse of power” when he pressured Ukrainian President Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden as a condition to receive millions in funding the nation needed.
In the case of Carr, he has repeatedly used his offices to target media outlets because he didn’t approve of their content. That is an express violation of federal law that controls the FCC which states point blank, “Nothing in this chapter shall be understood or construed to give the Commission the power of censorship.” The statute continues, “and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech.” It’s also a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.
Some Democrats in Congress have responded to Carr’s illegal and unconstitutional actions by calling for him to resign. Others have threatened to investigate Carr when Democrats take control of Congress—assuming they win in 2026.
But what Democrats can do now in one voice is call for the impeachment of Carr. They can draft articles of impeachment. They can try to force a vote so that House Republicans are forced to go on record on whether they support free speech or support censorship?!
If the impeachment articles are approved is not the issue. Will talking impeachment get press that furthers the media narrative we want heading into 2026 that Trump and the GOP are coming for your freedoms? Absolutely. That is why Democrats should lean into this now!
