Don’t Overlook How Bad This Lesser-Known Trump Nominee Is
Brendan Carr, Trump’s nomination for chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has been pitched as a “free speech advocate”—but nothing could be further from the truth.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty
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President-elect Donald Trump’s White House is shaping up to be a parade of flunkies and yes-men, but there is one pick in particular that worries The New Abnormal co-hosts Andy Levy and Danielle Moodie—and it’s not who you might think.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has been pitched as a “free speech advocate,” but nothing could be further from the truth.
“It doesn’t sound as bad as RFK Jr. being in charge of health policy or Matt Gaetz being in charge of the Justice Department, but it’s bad,” Levy said.
“This is a guy who is a strong ally of Elon Musk, another fake free speech champion,” he added. “This is a guy who thinks that, oh, for example, advertisers that refuse to advertise on Twitter are part of an illegal cartel that have to be broken up because they don’t want their ads running next to @HitlerLover69 tweets. So this guy is not a friend of free speech—he wants to go after broadcast networks that don’t bend the knee enough to Donald Trump, or that air reports that might be critical of Donald Trump, or that air shows like Saturday Night Live.”
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Then, Lucy Dean Stockton, an editor and reporter at The Lever, joins the program to discuss her most recent piece, “The Biden Reforms That will be First to Go,” and the very specific way Trump could erase many of President Joe Biden’s recent regulatory wins.
Plus! a conversation with Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, about the growing threats of hate, extremism and misinformation online.
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
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