‘Broadcast licenses aren't sacred cows’ (with FCC Chair Brendan Carr)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Brendan Carr** (0:21)
We have a role to play. It's not our role to be the speech police. It's not our role to sort of fundamentally transform editorial decisions. But there's a baseline level of regulation that Congress wanted. I think that is our job.

**Dasha Burns** (0:36)
Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns. And every week on this show, I talk to some of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players here in Washington and beyond. And this week, I sat down with Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Now, the SEC has not always been an agency that a lot of Americans spend a lot of time thinking about. But in President Trump's second term, the FCC has become more active and more controversial than it has in a really long time, especially when it comes to the media and the First Amendment.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:11)
I think Brendan Carr is a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn't like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly and purposely horribly.

**Dasha Burns** (1:23)
And Brendan Carr is President Trump's media pitbull. In fact, he has a mug on his desk that he showed me during a tour of his office that depicts him as just that, literally a picture of him as a pitbull on a leash with Trump chasing behind. It was an image originally created for The Hollywood Reporter for a less than flattering profile, but Carr doesn't seem to mind. In fact, it seems like he wears it as a badge of honor. His persistent threats to pull broadcasters' licenses, his spats with Jimmy Kimmel and his view and his overall aggressive posture toward the media has raised some alarm, not just among the press, but both Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns about the precedent that Carr is setting and the potential chilling effects on speech. But Carr doesn't see it that way. Folks, this was a lively conversation and you're not going to want to miss this episode or any others, so make sure that you subscribe to the show. And now, a conversation with FCC Chair, Brendan Carr.
FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, thank you so much for joining The Conversation.

**Brendan Carr** (2:33)
Yeah, good to be with you. Thanks for coming to the FCC. Look forward to the discussion.

**Dasha Burns** (2:36)
Yeah, for those who are listening and not watching, we are at the FCC headquarters. There's a great seal behind us that was redesigned, I just learned, in 2020

**SPEAKER_1** (2:45)
Exactly, yeah.

**Dasha Burns** (2:46)
I have never been to this building. I'm very happy to be here. To be honest, I don't think I really thought about FCC that much until your tenure with this agency.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:55)
I've heard that before, yeah.

**Dasha Burns** (2:56)
Yeah, this was, I think, a relatively obscure agency that not a ton of Americans paid attention to, but today, it is at the center of a lot of debates, whether you're talking about free speech or AI or the power of major tech companies. So how do you see your role in this version of the FCC?

**Brendan Carr** (3:14)
Well, it's interesting, look, I have loved the FCC for a very long time. I went to law school.

**Dasha Burns** (3:18)
The nerdiest thing I've ever heard.

**Brendan Carr** (3:20)
Right after I wanted to be a fireman and a cop from a young kid, I wanted to be a lawyer. And then very quickly after that, I wanted to be a lawyer that worked in telecoms. I went to law school.

**Dasha Burns** (3:27)
Kids, dreams do come true.

**Brendan Carr** (3:29)
You can dream big and it can happen. So I went to law school specifically for telecom, went to Catholic here in DC, and then was in private practice for a couple of years and came to the FCC actually all the way back in 2012 And I've been here straight since 2012 I've worn a bunch of different hats in this building. I've been general counsel, I've been a legal advisor. I've sat on basically every seat on the dais of the agency from commissioner in the minority to commissioner in the majority and now chair. In fact, the first time I walked in this building was in law school, or at least the prior FCC building.
And I got to intern in the enforcement bureau, an intern for a commissioner, a commissioner Abernathy. And so I've had the benefit of being here for a long time, watching a lot of chairs come and go. When you see chairs leave, they always feel like they wish they had a little bit more time to get stuff done. And what I tried to do was bring that mindset right to the get go from the agency and hit the ground running. And I have the capacity to do it, because I've been here for so long. You understand how the place works. You understand how the bureaus operate. And we really try to come out with a very clear North Star as a policy matter. We have that in media. We have that in permitting reform. We have that on wireless leadership. We have it on national security. So you put out a very clear agenda. The teams here are working exceptionally hard and they're doing really great results. It's oftentimes different results than what the media covers. Obviously the media likes to cover the media, which I get. And we can do that.