WASHINGTON — “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is back on ABC, but the specter of retaliation against his network still looms.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski said it was wrong for the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission to say last week that his agency could take action against Kimmel “the easy way or the hard way.”
"When you have the head of your regulatory agency weigh in, as the chairman did, in a way and with words that I could only interpret as threatening, as a warning out there, I think it is not only highly unusual, I think it is highly inappropriate," she told Alaska Public Media last week, before ABC reversed course and restored the show to the airwaves.
Kimmel is a frequent critic of President Trump. In an angry social media post Tuesday, Trump said he planned unspecified legal action to make ABC pay. For his part, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said recently that his words weren’t a threat.
Murkowski, though, said Carr’s statements were chilling and part of a pattern in the Trump administration.
“What we're seeing is that this is not just chilling in this space. We've seen it in other spaces," she said. "Look at the universities. ‘You either reform your policies, or I'm going to withhold grants. I'm going to withhold certain federal funding opportunities.’ So yes, this is, this is more than concerning.”
As a senator, she said she feels obligated to call it out.
"I think it's important that we speak out and say this is not what what we expect. This is not acceptable within our within our agencies," she said.
Sen. Dan Sullivan and Alaska Congressman Nick Begich did not respond to interview requests or emailed questions on this topic.
