FCC chair says Trump stood up for Americans: They 'do not trust' legacy media
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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Libertarian' FCC Commissioner Was Believed to Be Uncomfortable with Paramount Deal: Exclusive
Nathan Simington By Josh Kosman Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington was uncomfortable approving Skydance's controversial acquisition of CBS parent Paramount Global, and his resignation may have cleared the path for the merger, a DC FCC insider believed. The Federal Communications Commission on July 24 approved the Skydance-Paramount merger which is expected to get completed this week. Simington on June 6 resigned from the FCC just weeks before there was a vote on whether to approve the Ellison-controlled Skydance's $8 billion merger and the transfer of its 28 CBS-owned station broadcast licenses. Until last month Simington was a swing vote, though most were not aware of it. 'I think Simington was in a difficult position,' the source told CorpGov. 'He didn't care for the theatrics.' 'He was finding the whole thing awkward.' That included Trump's suit against Paramount that resulted in a $16 million settlement that was largely seen as necessary first before FCC approval. And the other concession Skydance made was to place a monitor at CBS to examine complaints of editorial bias for two years. The cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was possibly another one, according to reports. Simington was frustrated with the FCC and its unusual handling of the Paramount merger and felt he was shut out of the process, a source who spoke recently with the former Republican Commissioner told CorpGov. 'He didn't like the way things were going.' Simington is 45 years old, his wife is a piano teacher, and the couple who have children also felt they could use the extra income he would get from working in the private sector, the source said Simington does not like conditions placed on mergers – perhaps including the cancellation of the Stephen Colbert show. After Simington resigned, the US Senate quickly approved Republican Olvia Trusty to replace him by a 53-to-45 margin. 'It is time for a change,' FCC Chair Brendan Carr said after the FCC voted two-to-one to approve the merger referring to the appointment of the CBS monitor. 'That is why I welcome Skydance's commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.' Simington does not like conditions put on mergers, the DC insider said. 'He is more libertarian than MAGA,' a former FCC commissioner said. So much so that Simington also doesn't like the FCC fining people. In fact, Simington in August 2024 voted against Carr saying it was unclear if the Commission could levy fines in a separate FCC case. One could argue that Paramount's $16 million payment to President Trump over the lightly edited Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes was if not a bribe, at least a fine. When the US Senate questioned Simington before confirming him as an FCC Commissioner on Nov. 10, 2020, he asserted his independence. 'I acknowledge and fully agree that it would be inappropriate for the FCC to help any party (whether the White House or otherwise) to retaliate against any other party for any reason whatsoever,' he told the US Senate. 'Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the foundation for all of our rights as a free people. If I am fortunate enough to be confirmed, I will be an impartial and independent voice on the Commission and follow the law regardless of the political context,' Simington said. 'When we are talking about a CBS monitor it strikes me as influencing the media and we are heading down a road of kissing our democracy goodbye,' former Democratic FCC Chair Michael Copps told CorpGov. 'The FCC now is nothing but designed to do what the White House wants.' To be clear, Simington likely would have approved Skydance's acquisition of Paramount if there were no conditions attached, the insider said. 'If none of this happened, he would have been a reliable yes,' the source told CorpGov. Brendan Carr 'I cannot support this order approving this transaction in light of the payout and other troubling concessions Paramount made to settle a baseless lawsuit,' Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez in her dissent said. Carr said the FCC was not influenced by Trump's settlement. The mystery of Simington's resignation deepens when considering an odd April hire. Simington had wanted to leave the FCC for some time as Carr was doing everything essentially by himself without including him, a Democratic FCC source said, but he made a big hire just a few months before resigning. Simington added 31-year-old MAGA firebrand Gavin Max as his Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor. Max is a Trump loyalist who headed the New York Young Republicans Club. 'Total MAGA and no FCC related experience,' the Democratic source said. 'Once President Trump is back in office,' Wax in 2023 reportedly said, 'we won't be playing nice anymore. It will be a time for retribution.' Then, oddly, Simington started writing editorials with Wax espousing very Trumpian views. Simington had written op-eds before, including on November 24, 2024, for The Hill, but never with a co-writer, an FCC insider told CorpGov. 'A commissioner does not usually write an op-ed with his staff,' the source who spoke to Simington said. Simington was seen as more nerd than firebrand, the Democratic FCC source said. 'Trump has once again thrown down the gauntlet against the corporate media—this time by taking CBS to court,' a May 1 op-ed in the National Pulse from Simington and Wax said. 'His bold litigation has exposed what millions of Americans already know: the mainstream media is not a neutral institution, but a political weapon used to silence, smear, and control. But we must go beyond the courtroom to move from outrage to reform. It's time to hit fake news where it hurts most: financially.' Then there was a May 9 op-ed from both saying the FCC needed to reduce its staff and implement DOGE-like reforms. On July 22 Wax said on X, 'Big congratulations to President Trump on his massive victory against CBS, Paramount and 60 Minutes.' Simington did make efforts on his own to court the MAGA wing. In November, he said publicly that government funded discount broadband for low-income households should not be available to undocumented immigrants. Since resigning, he has also said Wax would be a good FCC Commissioner. There are now two open positions (a full FCC would have five voting members). Trump nominated Simington to the FCC in the closing days of his first term in November 2020 shortly after the Canadian became a US citizen and pushed hard for his confirmation. Olivia Trusty Late last year there was some belief Simington, who had worked at the Department of Commerce in Trump's first term, might be in line to be the FCC Chair. 'Simington was closer to Trump,' a media executive said. 'Carr didn't know Trump.' Still, Republican FCC Commissioner Carr long coveted the Chairmanship but did not know the President, sources told CorpGov. 'Carr booked a dinner ticket at Mar-A-Lago and waited in the hallway for Trump [shortly after the 2024 Presidential election].' 'He introduced himself to Trump and said he would make a great Chair.' 'I'd like the job. I'm your man!' The charismatic Carr, whose father Thomas was a white-collar defense attorney who once represented President Nixon, got the position. 'Sometimes, the guy who is not as close to you works twice as hard to prove they are the right person,' the media executive said. Now, Simington is a visiting fellow at the conservative-leaning Hudson Institute. Simington, the FCC, and Chair Carr did not return messages. Read more from Josh Kosman at Contact CorpGov Editor@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Post
9 hours ago
- New York Post
Ex-ABC News reporter Terry Moran admits network, traditional media biased against Trump: ‘A kind of deafness'
Disgraced former ABC News reporter Terry Moran admitted that his previous employer and other major news networks are biased against President Trump – accusing them of a 'deafness' in the newsroom. Moran revealed that there were hardly any pro-Trump journalists at ABC News in a recent post on his Substack channel, which has become his main outlet since getting fired in June following his social media tirade against White House adviser Stephen Miller. 'I worked at ABC News for almost 28 years, and I'm proud to say that. A lot of good people do a lot of really good work there, and they try hard to get the story right. There were many days over the years when I'd watch a colleague at work, on-camera or behind the scenes, and I'd think: That's how you do this,' Moran wrote in a Substack post last week. Advertisement 3 President Trump being interviewed by former ABC News reporter Terry Moran in April. AP 'But: Were we biased? Yes. Almost inadvertently, I'd say. ABC News has the same problem so many leading cultural institutions do in America: A lack of viewpoint diversity.' Since joining ABC News in 1997, Moran said the network hired and promoted journalists from a wider array of backgrounds. But it did not diversify when it came to hiring pro-Trump voices, which is 'bound to impact coverage' from 'what is a kind of deafness,' the longtime journalist wrote. Advertisement 'The old news divisions don't hear many of the voices of the country, because those voices aren't in the newsroom,' Moran continued. 'Yes, news teams go out with a microphone and a camera and accost people at Trump rallies; but to me that often comes off as weirdly anthropological and inaccurate, kind of like trying to understand nature by visiting a zoo. You don't really see a tiger at the zoo, just a version of a tiger.' Despite his apparent call for more pro-Trump journalists at major news networks, Moran took aim at the Trump administration's recent approval of a multi-billion dollar Paramount-Skydance merger – adding that FCC Chair Brendan Carr 'can go to hell.' 3 Former ABC News reporter Terry Moran and President Trump during an interview in April. ABC News Advertisement The FCC greenlit the deal after it was stuck in limbo for more than a year following Skydance's promise to appoint an ombudsman to track media bias at CBS News once it completes its takeover of parent company Paramount. Moran argued that the government should not be policing the editorial content of news coverage, likening the deal to Viktor Orban's Hungary, the Law and Justice Party's Poland and Vladimir Putin's Russia. 'The goal is de facto state control of national media narratives,' Moran wrote. 'It will be done by lawyers, zealots and toadies. Like Brendan Carr, who's all three.' Advertisement The FCC did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment. 3 White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller during a meeting in Scotland last week. REUTERS Moran also doubled down on his comments about Stephen Miller earlier this year, calling him a 'world-class hater' who operates not on 'brains' but 'bile,' which led to his suspension and eventual firing from ABC News. 'I don't take back or regret a syllable of the post I wrote about Stephen Miller and Donald Trump that got me fired by ABC. I think it was an accurate, fair, and true description of those men,' Moran wrote.
The Hill
15 hours ago
- The Hill
Canadian trade minister sees ‘great deal of common ground' with US
Canadian Minister for U.S.-Canada Trade Dominic LeBlanc expressed optimism on Sunday about the prospects of a trade deal between the two countries — even as President Trump announced he would impose 35 percent tariffs on goods from the neighboring country. 'We were obviously, obviously disappointed by that decision. We believe there's a great deal of common ground between the United States and Canada in terms of building two strong economies that work well together,' LeBlanc said in an interview on CBS News's 'Face the Nation.' LeBlanc spent last week in Washington, D.C. trying to hammer out a trade deal. He left without a resolution, after Trump announced new tariffs on Canadian goods not covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term. But LeBlanc praised his counterparts, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, for their efforts, saying they 'engaged with us in constructive, cordial conversations, so we're prepared to stick around and do the work needed.' 'But we remain very optimistic,' he added. LeBlanc said he expects Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to speak with Trump in the coming days. 'I would expect the Prime Minister will have a conversation with the President over the next number of days. That's certainly my plan, again with Secretary Lutnick, recognizing that we think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs, provide greater certainty to investment,' he said in the interview. LeBlanc noted that Canada passed a similar bill to the U.S. president's agenda-setting 'one big, beautiful bill,' which Trump signed into law one month ago. LeBlanc said the Canadian bill is projected to unlock up to $500 billion in investments in Canada, which would 'offer huge opportunities to American businesses as well.' 'So, we think there's a great deal- a great deal to work on together,' he added.
