‘Right out of Goodfellas’: Powerful Republican breaks ranks with Trump over Kimmel

Washington: US Senator Ted Cruz, the Republican who leads oversight of the Federal Communications Commission, joined Democrats in criticising FCC chair Brendan Carr’s recent threats against Disney and local broadcasters for airing Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The conservative senator from Texas, one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, said Carr’s threat to fine broadcasters or pull their licences over the content of their shows was dangerous.

“I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas,” Cruz said on Friday, Washington time, evoking the Martin Scorsese gangster movie.

“That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it’.”

The senator’s remarks are a rare example of a prominent member of President Donald Trump’s own party publicly criticising the actions of the administration, highlighting deepening concerns over free-speech rights and Trump’s threatened crackdowns.

TV host Jimmy Kimmel (left) and US President Donald Trump.Credit: AP

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he disagreed with Cruz, calling Carr “an incredible American patriot with courage”.

On Thursday, Trump had repeated an oft-stated contention that broadcasters critical of his administration perhaps should have their FCC-issued licences revoked.

Asked to comment further on Friday, Trump said, “I’m a very strong person for free speech,” but added that the broadcasters were so stacked against him that he considered them to be an extension of the Democratic Party.

“See, I think that’s really illegal, personally,” Trump – a former successful TV host himself – said of extensive criticism. “That’s no longer free speech ... That’s just cheating, and they cheat.”

FCC chair Brendan Carr has vowed to continue his work in the face of calls for him to resign.Credit: Bloomberg

Television network ABC, which is owned by Disney, suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show after Carr threatened investigations and regulatory action against licensed broadcasters who aired Kimmel. The owners of dozens of local TV stations affiliated with ABC said they would no longer carry the show.

Trump, who appointed Carr, has cheered the decision.

The suspension followed Kimmel’s opening monologue on Monday’s show where he discussed the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, a friend and political ally of the president.

Conservative activists were angered by Kimmel’s comments that they were using the assassination to score “political points” and his suggestion that the killer may also have been a conservative. Kimmel also joked about how Trump responded to the killing.

Prominent Democrats and civil rights groups condemned the Trump administration’s pressure to punish Kimmel and others who speak negatively of the president.

Republican senator Ted Cruz said Carr’s threat to fine broadcasters or pull their licences over the content of their shows was dangerous.Credit: AP

Cruz, chair of the Senate’s commerce oversight committee, joined the criticism on the Friday episode of his podcast, saying Carr’s comments were “dangerous as hell”.

The senator, a former constitutional lawyer, then adopted a broad mafioso accent to quote Carr’s comments about broadcasters this week: “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who infrequently agrees with Cruz, has called on Carr to resign or for Trump to fire him.

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Schumer called Carr “one of the single greatest threats to free speech America has ever known”. Some Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Friday asked the FCC’s inspector general to investigate Carr’s actions and comments.

Carr and the FCC did not respond to requests for comment, but Carr said during the week that he was “not going anywhere” and vowed to continue his work taking on media firms and defending the “public interest”.

Trump spoke several times during a state visit to Britain to commend Kimmel’s suspension, calling the Los Angeles comedian untalented and denouncing him for saying “a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk”.

In Monday’s monologue, Kimmel, who frequently lampoons Trump, mocked the president for turning a question about his grief for Kirk into a cheerful promotion for his planned White House ballroom.

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend,” Kimmel said. “This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

Kimmel has not publicly commented since his suspension, and the future of his show remains unclear.

Cruz said on his podcast that he had been mocked by Kimmel on air “so many times I cannot count” and that he hated Kimmel’s comments about Kirk.

He said he was thrilled that Kimmel’s show had gone dark, but not that it resulted from government pressure.

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“We shouldn’t be threatening government power to force him off-air,” Cruz said.

“It might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.”

Meanwhile, film and TV writers held a free-speech demonstration in New York on Friday to protest against Disney’s suspension of Kimmel and Trump’s efforts to punish broadcasters who speak ill of him.

Dozens, including some employed by ABC, marched on the sidewalk outside the Manhattan skyscraper where Disney has its offices to “protect free speech” in a rally organised by their labour union, the Writers Guild of America.

In a rally organised by the guild in Los Angeles on Thursday, about 150 demonstrators protested outside the Hollywood studio where Jimmy Kimmel Live! is recorded, waving signs saying: “Don’t Bend a Knee to Trump”, “Resist fascism” and “Douse the mouse”.

A protester outside El Capitan Entertainment Centre, where the late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is staged, in Los Angeles on Thursday.Credit: AP

Reuters

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