This FCC Commissioner’s Warnings Finally Have an Audience

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- For much of this year, Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democratic appointee on the Federal Communications Commission, has been something of a Cassandra. She has spent months traveling across the US, warning about the Trump administration’s growing “campaign of censorship and control” and the risk it presents to democracy.

It was, until this week, a lonely mission. But then on Wednesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to investigate ABC over comments made by late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and ABC, clearly under pressure, pulled Kimmel’s show. Now millions are listening, giving Gomez’s warning the wider attention it deserves.

On Friday, the soft-spoken, bespectacled commissioner told Bloomberg TV  that the Trump administration is using “whatever levers of power it has to bring broadcasters to heel and the news media.” 

Her comments were a continuation of what she told Axios and MSNBC on Thursday, cautioning as she has so many times before, that the administration is “weaponizing its licensing authority” and that “will retaliate against anyone that dares to speak out against it, and that is really dangerous for our democracy.”

That what she is saying is resonating indicates a clear shift in America’s priorities — and a possible opening for desperate  Democrats.

You might recall that last year, former Vice President Kamala Harris lost decisively to now-President Donald Trump after focusing her campaign on the threats he posed to democracy. Voters who backed Trump told pollsters they did so because they cared far more about the economy. Since then, there has been a lot of hand-wringing in the Democratic Party about whether Trump’s danger to democracy — and, by extension, free speech — is the right message to prioritize going forward.

But 2025 is not 2024. Recent polling from Ipsos found that “political extremism and threats to democracy” have overtaken the “economy, unemployment and jobs” as the top issue facing the US. That’s remarkable, but it’s not necessarily good for Democrats: Americans are split over which party is best equipped to tackle that top issue, with 30% saying Democrats, 29% saying Republicans and 34% saying they don’t know. 

If Democrats hope to win over that 34% of voters, they’ll have to explain why the administration’s threats against comedians and journalists matter just as much as the price of eggs. It will also mean making clear how their party would do things differently, starting with prioritizing the needs of average Americans.

Which brings me back to Gomez. She is doing both with her so-called First Amendment Tour.

Back in May, I got chance to see this firsthand when Gomez made Los Angeles the first stop outside of Washington DC. For a midday panel discussion, a surprisingly large group of deeply concerned residents, professors and media types showed up to hear her thoughts — and Gomez minced no words.

“The point of all of these actions is to chill speech,” she warned.

This was shortly after the FCC, under Carr, had put ABC News under scrutiny for its handling of the sole debate between Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and CBS News for its supposedly biased editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Harris.  Trump had also just signed an executive order cutting government funding for PBS and NPR. 

“We need people to speak up and to push back because the only way to beat a bully is to punch the bully back,” Gomez said, prompting nods around the room. “We need that to happen to this administration before it continues to erode our freedoms. The First Amendment is a pillar of our democracy, and we want to make sure that everyone can speak freely, whether we agree with that speech or not.”

More recently, she was in Spokane, Washington, arguing that “the First Amendment is foundational for democracy, and today that foundation is trembling under constant attacks from our own government.”

Gomez, who was appointed to the FCC by former President Joe Biden in 2023, is more of a bureaucrat than a brawler by nature. Before Trump returned to the White House, the former telecommunications attorney was mostly working on wonky issues of net neutrality and expanding access to broadband.

That all changed when Trump tapped Carr to become chairman of the FCC in January and she became the lone commissioner in June. The first galvanizing moment was when Carr announced on Fox News that he was opening an investigation into a San Francisco radio station over its reporting on immigration raids. Things have gone downhill from there.

Carr, echoing Trump, has dismissed any allegations of impropriety by the FCC, including conducting what Gomez calls “sham investigations.” In the case of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” he blamed declining viewership for the show being pulled.

Are late-night comedy shows really what the FCC, an agency with a relatively narrow mission to regulate broadcasting, telecommunications and broadband, should be focused on?

Gomez is wisely betting that most Americans would say no — and that instead, commissioners should be spending their time cracking down on robocallers, pirate radio, scams and fraud. “Real harm to consumers, real harm to businesses,” as she told Axios.

Her words might be getting through. On Thursday, more than 100 people showed up in Hollywood to protest ABC’s decision to sideline Kimmel. They carried signs urging ABC, “Don’t bend the knee to Trump.” There have also been calls to boycott the ABC-owned Disney streaming service. Even Republican US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas isn’t happy, comparing Carr to a Mafia boss.

A growing number of Americans also are understandably worried about the Trump administration’s related efforts to chill speech. Like Kimmel, others have been suspended or lost their jobs altogether for talking about the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. Attorney General Pam Bondi briefly threatened to prosecute people over it, deeming any criticism of him “hate speech.”

For all of these reasons, Gomez doesn’t plan on backing down. “I think there’s a lot of power in my dissent,” she said Thursday.

The First Amendment Tour goes on, even if Kimmel’s show does not.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Erika D. Smith is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She is a former Los Angeles Times columnist and Sacramento Bee editorial board member.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.