Letter to Brendan Carr re Jimmy Kimmel

 September 18, 2025

 

Commissioner Brendan Carr

Federal Communications Commission
 45 L Street NE
 Washington, DC 20554

 

Dear Commissioner Carr:

 

I object to your blatant attack on free speech and the partisan use of your office.

 

Jimmy Kimmel is a comedian. Comedians traditionally use humor and satire to ridicule those in power. That this ridicule often displays the truth makes it all the more effective. Your attack, blackmail better describes it, under the guise of community values sets a dangerous precedent. Ironically, it's the antithesis of what Kirk claimed to stand for:  liberty, open discourse, and critical thought.

 

You, who publicly claim to be a  champion of deregulation and limited government interference, have exposed yourself as a hypocrite whose campaign to eliminate regulation and governmental interference is now exposed for what it is: a blatant, partisan, attack on speech you and your boss do not like. Censorship disguised as a moral duty, a return to Comstockery.

 

Your threat to pull the licenses of companies who program "objectionable" speech is simply ideological blackmail. Substitute community values for communist and you have a return to McCarthyism. What's next, tattling on friends,  next – jailing TV writers for scripting “inappropriate” jokes?

 

You have repeatedly called TikTok a national security threat – but have done little to meaningfully address it. Apparently, in your mind, Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes are more dangerous. If that’s your priority, we’re in trouble.

 

And where were you when Kirk was spewing rhetoric that any reasonable person would recognize as hateful and inflammatory? Where were you when Democrats in Minnesota were gunned down? Silent. Absent.

Let’s not forget what Kirk himself has said: that educated Black women – including Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – supposedly lack the “brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously,” and “had to go steal a white person’s slot.” *This isn’t just offensive. It echoes 19th-century pseudoscience used to dehumanize and degrade. What did Kirk think of Clarence Thomas, I wonder? Or maybe it’s just women he can’t stand. Seems clearly offensive and a violation of the most basic norms. Where was you then? No where to be found.

 

It is shockingly ironic – and deeply troubling – that you are now doing precisely what you have accused Kimmel of joking about: using Kirk’s death to push a political agenda designed to suppress free speech and independent thought. 

 

And shame on Disney and ABC for caving to this nonsense. Bowing to fear is not leadership – it is cowardice. 

Sincerely,

[Signed]

 

*Charlie Kirk made the comments about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on September 10, 2025, during a segment of his show. In this segment, he questioned the qualifications of several prominent Black women, including Jackson, suggesting they lacked the "brain processing power" to be taken seriously and implying they were only in their positions due to affirmative action.