Trump taps Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission

President-elect Donald Trump will tap Brendan Carr, a critic of the Biden administration’s telecommunications policies and Big Tech, to chair the Federal Communications Commission, he said in a statement Sunday.

Carr, 45, is currently the top Republican on the FCC, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.

He has been a fierce critic of the FCC’s decision not to end nearly $900 million in broadband subsidies for Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet device Starlink, as well as the Commerce Department’s $42 billion broadband infrastructure program and President Joe Biden’s spectrum policy.

Last week, Carr wrote to Meta’s Facebook, the alphabet Google, Apple and Microsoft said they had taken steps to censor Americans. Carr said Sunday that the FCC must “restore free speech to ordinary Americans.”

The president-elect has contempt actions Disney’s ABC, Comcast’s NBC and Paramount Global’s CBS and suggested they could lose their FCC licenses for various actions. Trump also sued CBS over their “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Carr criticized NBC for allowing Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” right before the election.

Trump, in his first term, called on the FCC to revoke broadcast licenses, prompting then-FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to reject the idea, saying that “the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license for a broadcast station based on its content.”

The FCC issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not to broadcast networks.

In 2022, Carr, a strong critic of China, became the first FCC commissioner to visit Taiwan. He has been a proponent of the FCC’s tough line on Chinese telecommunications companies.

Carr was a staunch opponent of the FCC’s decision in April to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules that were repealed during the first Trump administration. The Biden FCC rules were put on hold by a federal appeals court.

Trump nominated Carr to the FCC during his first administration in January 2017 after serving as the FCC’s general counsel.

The incoming administration will need to nominate a Republican to fill a seat on the five-member commission before it can take full control of the agency.

Carr “is a warrior for free speech and has fought against the legislative lawfare that has stifled Americans’ liberties and held back our economy,” Trump said in a statement.