{"id":149262,"date":"2025-09-20T12:30:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T12:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/149262\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T12:30:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T12:30:37","slug":"powerful-republican-ted-cruz-breaks-ranks-with-donald-trump-over-tv-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/149262\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerful Republican Ted Cruz breaks ranks with Donald Trump over TV crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSee, I think that\u2019s really illegal, personally,\u201d Trump \u2013 a former successful TV host himself \u2013 said of extensive criticism. \u201cThat\u2019s no longer free speech … That\u2019s just cheating, and they cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Federal<\/p>\n

Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has vowed to continue his work amid calls for him to resign.Credit: Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Television network ABC, which is owned by Disney, suspended Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late-night talk show<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Trump, who appointed Carr, has cheered the decision.<\/p>\n

The suspension followed Kimmel\u2019s opening monologue on Monday\u2019s show where he discussed the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, a friend and political ally of the president.<\/p>\n

Conservative activists were angered by Kimmel\u2019s comments that they were using the assassination to score \u201cpolitical points\u201d and his suggestion that the killer may also have been a conservative. Kimmel also joked about how Trump responded to the killing.<\/p>\n

Prominent Democrats and civil rights groups condemned the Trump administration\u2019s pressure to punish Kimmel and others who speak negatively of the president.<\/p>\n

\"Republican<\/p>\n

Republican senator Ted Cruz says Carr\u2019s threat to fine broadcasters or pull their licences over the content of their shows is dangerous.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

Cruz, chair of the Senate\u2019s commerce oversight committee, joined the criticism on the Friday episode of his podcast, saying Carr\u2019s comments were \u201cdangerous as hell\u201d.<\/p>\n

The senator, a former constitutional lawyer, then adopted a broad mafioso accent to quote Carr\u2019s comments about broadcasters this week: \u201cWe can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who rarely agrees with Cruz, has called on Carr to resign or for Trump to fire him.<\/p>\n

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Schumer called Carr \u201cone of the single greatest threats to free speech America has ever known\u201d. Some Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Friday asked the FCC\u2019s inspector general to investigate Carr\u2019s actions and comments.<\/p>\n

Carr and the FCC did not respond to requests for comment, but Carr said during the week that he was \u201cnot going anywhere\u201d and vowed to continue his work taking on media firms and defending the \u201cpublic interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump spoke several times during a state visit to Britain<\/a> to commend Kimmel\u2019s suspension, calling the Los Angeles comedian untalented and denouncing him for saying \u201ca horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk\u201d.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cThis is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel has not publicly commented since his suspension, and the future of his show remains unclear.<\/p>\n

Cruz said on his podcast that he had been mocked by Kimmel on air \u201cso many times I cannot count\u201d and that he hated Kimmel\u2019s comments about Kirk.<\/p>\n

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He said he was thrilled that Kimmel\u2019s show had gone dark, but not that it resulted from government pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be threatening government power to force him off-air,\u201d Cruz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, film and TV writers held a free-speech demonstration in New York on Friday to protest against Disney\u2019s suspension of Kimmel and Trump\u2019s efforts to punish broadcasters who speak ill of him.<\/p>\n

Dozens, including some employed by ABC, marched on the sidewalk outside the Manhattan skyscraper where Disney has its offices to \u201cprotect free speech\u201d in a rally organised by their labour union, the Writers Guild of America.<\/p>\n

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: \u201cDon\u2019t Bend a Knee to Trump\u201d, \u201cResist fascism\u201d and \u201cDouse the mouse\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A protester on Thursday outside El Capitan Entertainment Centre in Los Angeles, where the late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! is filmed.Credit: AP<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSee, I think that\u2019s really illegal, personally,\u201d Trump \u2013 a former successful TV host himself \u2013 said of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-149262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}