we'll have to do some preliminary evaluations but I think Catherine will do well here over here I'm ready to go in coach just give me a chance I know there's a lot riding on it but it's all psychological just got to stay in a positive frame of mind let's see that in an instant replay she's perfect Mr chairman has a great Ring to it man just Rings like a bell thanks so much Benny great to be with you uh you've been with me for a long time along the ride I knew you back when I
was a merely a commissioner and here I am now in the corner office at the FCC uh the chairman suite and we have wasted no time uh getting going actually you know longer story for another day but uh you and I were together actually down at maral Lago uh when had the conversation with President Trump and indicated that I'd be chairman of the FCC and that was a uh a really really good night and we've hit the ground running and look president Trump has been knocking the ball out of the park I can't believe it's
been one week just one week almost to the minute that he was sworn in he came in and knocked out hundreds of executive actions I mean you've seen DC Forever right most people come in and they they hope to turn the ship of government one degree here maybe two degrees there and president Trump has just shattered that mindset uh he's turned the ship of government around already uh and we were headed towards a you know great strengthening and Golding age for the country and it it feels really really good to be in DC with uh
with President Trump just down the street man it has got to be just an absolute Whirlwind and possibly the most historic uh single week of an Administration in American history uh from from your position here obviously you've been making quite a few changes and something that we've been covering extensively on the program but you were one of the first out of the gate saying yeah d will not be operational inside of the FCC can you can you explain that process uh to us Mr chairman yeah we were ready to go day one I had been
planning for weeks at this point that the very first thing we were going to do was to be coming out of the box ending the fcc's promotion of Dei and president Trump uh beat me to the punch as he's want to do and he got an executive order out on Dei first and so we were able to come in behind that and the policies he articulated the American people would be absolutely shocked if they knew how deep de I and this sort of invidious form of discrimination had crept into the FCC and the alphabet soup
of agencies all across government we put out a release following president Trump's leadership on this where we eliminated Dei look Dei was like listed as the number two strategic priority at the FCC our job is to make sure people have connectivity make sure rural Broadband is getting out there and instead of doing that we were listing the promotion of Dei we had a Dei Advisory Group that's now been shut down and all its members have been uh in informed and and thanked for their public service we had Dei in our budget we were spending millions
and millions of taxpayer dollars promoting Dei and thanks to president Trump that is ending yes and thanks to president Trump censorship is ending and I know that this is something that is so near and dear to your heart uh Mr chairman for years you've been talking about it even before it happened you said that the infrastructure is in place to censor Americans and to Rob us of our freedom of speech few listened to you years ago when you said that and boy have you been proven correct Donald Trump ending some of the censor aspects of
the federal government can you talk us through the work that you're doing at the FCC to put a stop to the destruction of freedom of speech yeah this is so important in fact I think Benny one of the first times you and I crossed paths many many years ago is I think when you got in trouble for some meme you put out I couldn't tell you which meme it was you've got in trouble for so many memes uh over the years but I was happy to have your back then and we'll continue to do it
you know look we're coming out of a three or four year period where there's just been this massive censorship uh both across governments across sea sues you know shutting down America's uh Free Speech rights and there's a lot of problems with that I mean look but when you censor words you're censoring ideas and when you censor ideas you're preventing Innovation that's part of why I think people felt like there was this wet blanket over the country for the last four years and why it feels so good in the country right now I think so many
people are fired up from uh all across the country to get you know businesses going because they know that all of this is connected and the Biden Administration played a big role they were pressuring Facebook they were pressuring other social media companies to block speech who censor Americans and president Trump came right out of the box with an executive order that said that type of jawboning of Corporations to censor people is going to end and this is one of the top two priorities for me you know ending big techs censorship cartel that's job number one
and thankfully we got some good partners across government the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission Andrew Ferguson he and I are very aligned on this in fact we may do a memorandum of understanding or other activity together soon to try to work together on these issues but that's big one and then obviously you know media is an important one as well you know broadcasters are differently situated than everyday Americans because they have this special privilege of having a license that not everybody gets and therefore they're supposed to operate not in any narrow interest but in
the public interest itself and the FCC has completely walked away from you know regul in the public interest when it comes to these Airwaves and that's something that we're going to bring back as well in fact it's funny you know the first time I came here to the the chairs Suite uh I may mess up my my tripod here but the FC's chair Suite actually oversees I don't if you can see it uh that's the NPR building right there national public radio so uh so the FCC physically oversees uh NPR and soon with me in
this Suite we may be overseeing them in a uh in a very different way as well so I'm looking forward to that yes Mr chairman I wanted to bring this up you made a lot of news last week FCC chair Brendan Carr restores biased complaints by Trump against ABC NBC CBS for their campaign coverage if you wouldn't mind because there are some major technicalities here could you please uh take a step back and explain to us uh what kind of goodies these broadcasters get because it's not fair to compare them to like our show or
to Independent creators they're given huge uh bundles of money and uh privilege from the American taxpayer and the American government but there's an exchange for that and they've broken that contract it seems um the floor is yours Mr chairman yeah you're right broadcasters are are differently situated you know it's not a a cable channel per se it's not a streamer like you are it's not a guy on the street with a soap box again they have this special right to use the Public's Airways in exchange for that they have to operate in the public interest
in fact when it comes to places like NP are it's doubly so not only do they have to operate in the public interest but they have this special status um because they're supposed to sort of the educational needs of their community so they get benefits above and beyond even what regular broadcasters get as well and they may be hearing from me uh pretty soon on on those issues as well but these particular complaints are interesting so at the very last minute the 11th Hour the Biden Administration came out and summarily dismissed three different complaints that
were one against ABC one against CBS uh one against NBC the CBS one having to do with allegations of news Distortion related to the 60 Minutes editing of the interview with vice president Harris these are not frivolous complaints at the end of the day it's not you know entirely clear to me where we're going to land on the merits of these complaints but what it is clear to me is sarily dismissing them at the 11th Hour was a mistake and so we had the bureaus reverse those dismissals all three of those complaints are now live
before the FCC and I'm asking the bureaus to move forward with their information gathering and their process for treating these complaints the way they should be treated which is you know certainly something not frivolous and we'll be looking at that good uh this is something that of course caused an enormous amount of high blood pressure on this program Mr chairman when we watched ABC News brag about how they had no plan to fact check KLA Harris during the debate they were open about that that's they they were excited to tell you and yet they fact
checked Donald Trump's jokes live and we're thinking to ourselves wait a second like ABC News is running a rigged debate this is clear clearly obvious and it's not in the public interest it's uh being they're taking the taxpayers Goodwill credit privilege and money and then weaponizing it against the majority of the country which seems so wrong yeah the complaint uh there does go to that debate it does go to David M's conduct during the debate and we're going to take a look at it we're going to adjudicate the merits of it eventually uh once we
feel like we have a sufficient factual record but the NBC complaint as well had to do with the SNL appearance that vice president Harris and actually Senator Tim Kane got I you may remember this I was sitting at home it was pretty late Saturday night uh before the Tuesday election on November and all of a sudden I see sort of flash across X this you know breaking news vice president uh Harris's PL is landing in New York to do a you know last minute interview on SNL ahead of the election and what came to my
mind immediately was you know SNL and NBC had publicly represented that no candidate was going to get a last minute spot on SNL because they didn't think in their view they could let them on consistent with fcc's rules about equal time and so I was very surprised to see it and quickly sounded the alarm on that and that complaint also Remains live again it's not just yeah president Trump and whether he was uh had his rights Vindicated or not Senator Tim kanaine was running an election there against hunga I want to make sure that Huna
got his rights but there could be other candidates as well including um RFK J who was still on some ballots running against Harris in at least some states maybe he had some rights as well so those are all issues that we need to unpack with respect to that NBC complaint yeah many people on the right have regularly talked about how unfair it is that taxpayers have to fund media operations that that cut directly against their interests and PBS and NPR are uh stations that are totally and completely supported by the taxpayer and would cease operations
I believe if the f funding were pulled and so what is the metric to actually determine whether they are of public interest whether that's a good use of taxpayer dollars now what can the FCC do to either reset the table and ensure that there's Fair coverage or or to make sure that these goodies that are given to them by us to stop being abused yeah there's certainly a lot the FC can do I'm G do it perhaps as early as as this week we'll have some more news on that to share but the bottom line
is you know when when NPR first came about if you looked at you know the cross-section of their viewership you know they seem to be making a really good effort to appeal to a broad cross-section of the country and appeal to the public interest there's been a lot of reporting recently about how uh if you look at their their viewership where they're going right now it's a real sort of Niche product at this point in time that raises a lot of questions and also remember the reason why they have these special protection that go above
and beyond ordinary broadcasters is they're supposed to serve uh the educational needs of communities so for instance they're they're considered non-commercial which means they're not allowed to run advertisements there maybe some issues there that that I'll be taking a look at and we'll flag for you when when you get the chance but stepping back you know years ago there was a chairman of the FCC Newton minnow and he gave a a famous speech at the time and it's become famous since then as well where he referred to broadcast TV as the the vast Wasteland and
it was taken as a big criticism of broadcasters at the time in fact broadcasters reacted so negatively that if you remember Gilligan's Island the TV series named the boat the SS Minnow the sunken ship after the chairman of the FCC Newton minnow after that speech you know from my perspective I don't I don't really ref refer to it as a a vast Wasteland but instead it's a very different problem which is this sort of great sheep dogging of the American public you know this idea that broadcasters are serving the public interest that they're appealing broadly
seems like it's been replaced increasingly over the years with just trying to push people towards preferred political narratives and so I think you know hopefully eventually the SC is going to come together we're going to look at this public interest standard but to me that's one of sort of the biggest you know problems if you're just ask me as a commentator um as to where we are in media right now is just this sheep dogging people um I'm not sure it's been a good Trend but look I think the movement towards podcast is great that's
been helping a lot the movement towards streaming services has been helping a lot and so we're we're lucky in the sense we have a much bigger uh ecosystem when it comes to news and information than we've ever had before I think that's why you see just massively declining audience shares I mean you know MSNBC continues to to lose viewers um and people like you are continuing to gain well we appreciate that Mr chairman and we appreciate your work because without you helping Protect free speech we wouldn't have a show we wouldn't have the ability uh
to do this we we would be censored within an inch of Our Lives Many people lost over the last four years so much of what they built and so we just we deeply appreciate you setting the tables correct and I want to move on to broadband but very quickly here what are the maximum punishments that could be placed on an ABC and NBC a CBS if they're if they are hyp found guilty of doing this I mean could they get their licenses revoked could NPR get their funding cut uh or eliminated you know what what
what could the FCC do actually if they they if they're found to be manipulating the American public like this look I think every single remedy needs to be on the table right now when I when I speak about the specific remedies people sort of overreact to that so all I'll say is all remedies should be on the table but with respect to NPR and PBS in particular there is a big debate in Congress right now about Congress continuing to fund them or not in my own view particularly based on I'm seeing is that I don't
see a reason why Congress should continue to fund them and so I look forward to participating in that process and making My Views to Congress known on those issues at at the right time yeah so Mr chairman there was a lot talked about there's plenty of uh banging the drum about how they're going to connect in the Biden Administration Broadband KLA Harris doing big events and everything like that huge controversies with who were getting those contracts and not having starlink be part of that it seems like very underhanded movement against Elon Musk somebody of course
who is a big proponent of free speech and who endorsed president Trump uh it seems like they were taking it out on Elon and we have starlink we love using it on this program we used it during a hurricane for instance here in Florida and ran the entire show off it anyway the technology seems awes it seems incredible yet how many people were connected in rural areas to broadband or to fiber um how easily you know how how can how can we rethink the landscape given the available technology now um to make sure that this
actually happens yeah look you know you can step back there was this 42 billion uh initiative that President Trump sorry that President Biden uh stood up back in uh 2021 and actually vice president Harris stepped up and said that she wanted to lead that $42 billion initiative and agreed to lead it flash forward to the end of the administration over a thousand days and you don't need an advocus or you don't even need two hands to count how many Americans were connected the answer was Zero they didn't even turn one single shovel worth of dirt
42 billion doar now the way out the door they tried to get some of the money out there but I think most of the money if not all the money is still uh with the government with the Commerce Department some of it has probably gone to the states for planning and whatnot but no money has actually gone into turning dirt and they're doing things like spending potentially over $100,000 $100,000 of your taxpayer per household in some cases in some cases that they're going to connect whereas Starling can do it for a couple hundred bucks per
household so so think about the inefficiency there in fact when the Commerce Department under the body Administration was leaving they lamented that you know there's still a very big digital divide and too many Americans have been left connected it kind of reminded me of that Meme of you know we're looking for the guy responsible for that 42 billion nobody connected uh they're kind of the ones that that that held us so uh when lutnick gets confirmed when he gets into Commerce that 42 billion will be in his Bailey Wick and they'll have to make decisions
there about how much to return to the treasury how much to move forward but fundamentally how to sort of Reform that program that's exactly right I mean again we used starlink we used it here during a category 4 hurricane we were able to do the show live the entire Studio was shaking and we were connected we had our starlink up and out and it was Inc it was incredible technology um this is a wild story you know during the the the first Trump Administration we had made an award about $800 million to starlink to connect
hundreds of thousands of rural Americans and the Democrats came in and they revoked it in in my own assessment purely for political reasons they said well this is an experimental technology we don't know if starlink is going to work but meanwhile the government itself even the Biden Administration was using starlink for you know life and death Mission critical level operations and so I thought that was a real shame and what I've told everybody is they're going to get a fair Shake uh from me at the FCC and I'm sure from the Trump Administration people don't
like that but the fact of the matter is when the government has been weaponized to favor you and your interests when the government turns around and gives even-handed treatment to everybody that may feel like discrimination to you because you're used to being having the government weaponize in your favor but that's just not how we're going to operate anymore you that's such a great point you've been weaponizing memes you can even reference the memes off the top of your head here's the meme that you referenced in case anybody needed it this so perfectly explains the Biden
Administration I know we're we're very I know we're very very hard up on time here Mr chairman but very quickly uh we're all trying to find the guy who did this this is Joe Biden in the hot dog outfit right um Tik Tok the Tik Tok ban we're all trying to find the guy who did this says Joe Biden right we're so upset about it they they did it your thoughts on this band is obviously it's obviously very controversial uh there's a very strong opinions on both sides uh your your thoughts on uh the Tik
Tok ban and how should it proceed yeah this was pretty simple uh in my view at this point you know president Trump is going to lead on this President Trump is going to call the ball he's you know made clear that he's the one that can put together a deal that's both going to you know Safeguard US National Security interest and hopefully make sure that uh the people that you know innocently are using Tik Tok get to continue to do so so I'm you know looking forward to him now that he's been in there for
a week um working with his National Security team you there's OB been various rumors of different deals everything from Mr Wonderful all the way on down and I'm excited about the opportunity to see you know the deal that President Trump can put together I look forward to supporting where he lands that good so as long as it's an American hands which is something that we care a lot about um then then Tik Tok should be good yeah okay fantastic uh parting a a a parting uh message I think it might be refreshing to reset the
table perhaps a parting message to Elon Musk um I uh I I know he engages quite a bit with what with what we're doing I'm sure it's going to be a a refreshing to hear uh that everything will not be politically weaponized against him um what's your message to the owner of x look I mean our agenda is pretty clear we're going to sort of look at the uh big Tech censorship ring that in we're going to take a look at media regulations in the public interest and then three I've got a whole economic agenda
that includes space so the FC has a space Bureau that had stood up and unfortunately over the last couple of years it operated more like fly paper than rocket fuel in the process we're going to fundamentally transform that so whether it's SpaceX or hopefully Kyper soon or even the small startups I do think the FCC is going to play a role in making sure that we can get the thousands and thousands of satellites up there and the launch author authorizations that are needed so the US can continue to lead the world in space I think
the FCC is going to play a small but important role in that and that's G to be one of the the lasting legacies I think we're going to achieve over the next couple of years that's so awesome and nobody talks about it and it's it's so important it's so unbelievably important that's the next battle the battle in 2024 I think like the downward effect of Elon Musk buying X and uh setting the tone for What free speech actually looks like now you're seeing the results in meta you're seeing the results at Google you're seeing the
results in Microsoft and Amazon I mean it's it truly is unbelievable I think it's the bravest we think it's the bravest singular move uh that's been made in in free speech history and so it's just it's it's got to be it's an exciting time to take over it is it is look I think there's a a saying that I think was attributed to Thomas Jefferson but I don't think he said it but when we attribute something to someone like him maybe people pay more attention to it but there's a line about you know one man
with courage makes a majority and when you see what Musk did with X um and Linda did on X in terms of putting their foot in the ground and standing up for free speech when it very wasn't wasn't popular at all and to your point now there's a majority uh Facebook has gone that way and others are sort of heading that direction as well I think it's a great thing for the country what an exciting time to be taking over Mr chairman uh thank you so much for your work here and it's so exciting to
see you in the chair Mr Carr yeah joining us live Everybody follow along 150,000 on X you can also find great memes and replies and some of the spiciest content and saltiest content that exists on the platform uh Mr chairman we're very very excited to have you on the program godspeed we're supporting your work thanks great to be with you thanks so much [Music] [Music]
