TPI: Carr's Google Letter 'Jawboning' for Trump and Musk
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s letter to Google over faith-based programming (see 2503070052) goes against the intent of his “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding and appears to be more of a political gesture than an indication of FCC action, said retired telecom attorney Jonathan Nuechterlein in a blog post Thursday for the Technology Policy Institute.
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The FCC lacks jurisdiction over YouTube TV, and programming choices are protected by the First Amendment, Nuechterlein said. “In all likelihood, Chairman Carr does not seriously intend to expand the scope of the program carriage rules because he knows that he legally cannot.”
The Google letter and the Delete proceeding “are written and advertised in ways that seem intended to appeal to [President Donald Trump], Elon Musk, and the [Make America Great Again] faithful." Pointing out that Carr made the letter public on Musk’s X platform, Nuechterlein speculated that the unusual name of the Delete proceeding stems from a Musk quote. “The title appears to originate in a quote from Elon Musk in Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography: ‘Step one should be to question the requirements. Make them less wrong and dumb, because all requirements are somewhat wrong and dumb. And then delete, delete, delete.’” The FCC didn’t comment on whether the proceeding’s name is based on Musk’s quote. “Why does the same catchphrase appear as the caption for the new FCC review proceeding (albeit without attribution)? Perhaps to signal enthusiastic loyalty to Musk and, by extension, President Trump,” Nuechterlein said.
“Extralegal jawboning is no better than overbroad regulation,” he added. “There comes a point when any new agency head, of whatever ideological persuasion, must put the political virtue-signaling aside, align rhetoric with substance, and get down to the hard business of pursuing a coherent set of sensible regulatory policies.”