What A Day - Can Trump's FCC Manufacture War Propaganda?

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

The Iran War is not very popular with Americans – and the Trump Administration seems to think it knows why: the media is being too mean about the President’s war of choice. On Saturday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr reposted a Trump Truth Social screed against The New York Times and Wall Street Journal on Twitter — adding, “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” Carr has real power in his role as FCC Chairman – power he wants to use on behalf of President Trump. So to talk more about the FCC under Brendan Carr, we spoke with Matt Gertz. He’s a senior fellow at the progressive media watchdog, Media Matters.And in headlines, the gloves came off during Oklahoma Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing, the government’s top intelligence officials testify about worldwide threats before the Senate, and The New York Times publishes a multiyear investigation revealing labor activist Cesar Chavez’s sexual abuse of women and girls.Show Notes: Check out Matt's work – www.mediamatters.org/author/matt-gertz Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, March 19th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today. The show that just learned, legendary 80s new wave band, the B-52s, is upset with Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn made an AI parody of the song Love Shack to attack his primary competitor in the Senate runoff, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for having a whole bunch of affairs. Selected lyrics from the parody include, quote, he's heading down the corrupt highway, looking for his lying getaway. Politics. On today's show, the gloves come off during Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen's confirmation hearing. Or maybe they were never on. And Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, suggests that somehow intelligence is not part of her job. You

probably had already figured that out. But let's start with the Federal Communications Commission and the War with Iran, two topics that really shouldn't go together, and yet here we are. The Iran War is not very popular with Americans, and the Trump administration seems to think it knows why. The media is being too mean about President Donald Trump's War of Choice. Trump himself spent his weekend railing on true social against the Wall Street Journal and New York Times for their reporting on the war. He called them, quote, highly unpatriotic news organizations who should face charges of treason. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said in a statement to the New York Times Monday, quote, the media has been undeniably biased and negative in its coverage of President Trump and Operation Epic Fury.

Anybody with eyes and ears can see this. Of course, the administration that purports to loathe the media is chockful of former members of the media, like ex-Fox news host and Secretary of War slash little boy Pete Hegsef. Here he is making some suggestions to journalists during a press conference on Friday. People look up at the TV and they see banners, they see headlines. I used to be in that business. And I know that everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner or a headline,

Mid-East War intensifies splashing on the screen the last couple of days alongside visuals of civilian or energy targets that Iran has hit because that's what they do. What should the banner read instead? How about Iran increasingly desperate? Because they are. How helpful. The message is clear.

say things the way we want you to say them or else. And FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, never one to let subtext remain subtext, made that point on Twitter over the weekend. On Saturday, Carr reposted a Trump true social screed against the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Carr added, quote, the law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not. Of course, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are not broadcasters, but I don't think Carr cares. He wants all of the media to tow the line and be more patriotic. Here he is on Wednesday on the New York Post podcast, Pod Force One, with Miranda Devine. We recently launched sort of in honor of the country's 250th, a Pledge

America campaign. We're inviting broadcasters to, you know, once again highlight the great wins of the country and to run patriotic programming, maybe starting off with Pledge of Allegiance, which we used to do, but just lots of ways that you can run pro-America content. It would be a great thing for broadcasters to do, particularly this year. And what's more patriotic than telling Americans that the war in Iran is awesome? Here's Fox News host, Ainsley Earhart, echoing the party mandate on Monday. Well, the president has said, enough with this coverage from other networks that are not telling you the truth, that are so negative about what's going on. This is a pro-America fight, and every network needs to get on board with that.

It would be funny if it weren't so disturbing. Carr has real power in his role as FCC chairman, power he wants to be. wants to use on behalf of President Trump and his war of choice. So to talk more about Carr's FCC, I spoke with Matt Gertz. He's a senior fellow at the Progressive Media Watchdog, Media Matters. Matt, welcome to what today. Thanks so much for having me. FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, is threatening to revoke the license of broadcasters, quote, that are running, hoaxes, and news distortions, also known as the fake news. That's from his tweet over the weekend. Now, we all know the Trump administration has an inaccurate idea of what is and

isn't fake news. So what does this really mean to you? Well, I think there's a lot of confusion about what exactly Carr could do and whether I think he will try to do it. The reality is that the FCC's powers are fairly limited here. His ability to take away licenses is not something that he can do at a whim. And even if he were to do something, there is, you know, lots of legal precedent that suggests he would not be able to do it successfully if the station's in question fought. That, I think, is the big concern, though. We saw Trump and his administration roll out a lot of the same tactics in his first term. He attempted to meddle with a merger involving CNN. He issued a lot of threats to Jeff Bezos over Amazon. Bezos also owned the Washington Post. But what we

saw then was the moguls were willing to put up a fight. They were willing to take him to court to defend the First Amendment. This time around, they're not doing that. And because of that, I think there is a real concern that will have news outlets knuckling under rather than fighting back. Now, if Carr ever made good on this threat, how would it work? Like, how would you take away a license? I mean, obviously, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal don't have licenses, and neither do I. How would this even work?

Right. So the broadcast networks work kind of like franchisees, right? You have all of these individual local stations across the country. They put out programming from ABC or CBS or Fox or NBC. they're all licensed by the FCC. It's not the overall broadcast network that is sort of implicated here. It's those individual stations. Those stations are also often owned by larger affiliate networks, you know, companies that bundle together 10, 20, 50, 100, almost 200 stations now.

Like Sinclair. Like Sinclair, right. Some listeners slash viewers might remember from the Jimmy Kimmel incident in which a bunch of of Sinclair-owned stations pulled his show in protest after his remarks regarding conservative activist Charlie Kirk. So, you know, if you are watching NBC News in Cincinnati or CBS in Seattle, a lot of these networks are owned by these corporations. And that's the concern I have, which is, you know, yes, Carr could take away their licenses, but these corporations might just kowtow anyway. Exactly. And in fact, they could also just use cars' complaints.

as an excuse to engage in that sort of right-wing machinations, which is what we saw in the Jimmy Kimmel scenario. I mean, a lot of what Carr is doing is jawboning. He is suggesting the possibility of future regulatory actions taken against these news outlets if they don't get themselves in line. And I think what we've seen is that in many cases, the news business often makes up a tiny fraction of the overall business interests of these corporations. And so you end up in a situation where the journalists might want to do a good job,

do good reporting. But it is the sort of corporate moguls who are the ones actually being put to the test, who actually have the decision-making power here. Let's say Brendan Carr did it. He revoked the broadcast license for one of these entities. where do they go from there? I mean, then they'd have to sue in federal court. Most of the First Amendment advocates who've talked about this have said that there's just

no way that a court would agree with Brendan Carr in a case like this, that the court would act on the station's behalf and sort of get rid of that ruling. But it's expensive, right, to fight for the First Amendment. You have to, you know, hire lawyers to defend yourself against the federal government. And, you know, what we saw from Disney and from CBS when they were sued by Donald Trump over reporting they had done was that their owners basically forced them to fold because it would be better for their overall corporation to just get it over with. The BBC just asked a judge to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit over an edit made to one of Trump speeches in the documentary Trump a second chance. They're saying allowing the lawsuit would come. a, quote, chilling effect. So I want to ask about your take on that. But I also want to ask,

it seems as if if you give in to Trump, you just have to keep doing it. But if you don't, nothing seems to happen. Trump is technically suing both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and they haven't stopped doing any reporting on Trump. What does that tell you? I think these are sort of related questions. I think what the administration is trying to do is very much to chill the speech of these news outlets to try to convince them not to do more critical reporting and commentary about their goings-on. Trump loves to complain about anything that is less propagandistic than what he sees on Fox News every day. But the BBC like the New York Times, like the Wall Street Journal, is an entity that is entirely, or if not entirely, then largely

a news organization. I mean, that's sort of the whole ball of wax for them. If they don't produce independent, credible news reporting, they lose their entire business model, whereas CBS News is part of a much larger conglomerate for which the news division is a tiny fraction of it. So I think the logic for some of these moguls is it's basically a rounding error, whatever happens to CBS News for the larger industry. It's interesting to me, and I'm curious for your thoughts on how Hegsef and others within the Trump administration seem to be basically making the argument of like, I can't wait until you're taken over by people we like.

It's not just about we are upset at how you're reporting on these stories. It is a direct, we want you to be owned by different people and we have the power to make that happen. How does that impact these kind of disputes going forward? when it seems so clear that Trump wants to hear something different from CNN or CBS or any of these outlets, and he and the people around him are willing to say so out loud. Yeah, I mean, I think it means there will just be ongoing pressure on all of these entities throughout the Trump administration. I mean, we're really seeing, I think, a use of strategies similar to those that Victor Orban,

the autocratic leader of Hungary, used over the last decade, decade and a half, to mold its media, attempting to shift independent outlets into the hands of his cronies. I think David Ellison is playing that role. It's the son of Larry Ellison,

a major Trump supporter, and he now, between he and his father, if this merger involving CNN's parent company goes through, they'll control CNN and CBS News and the Paramount and Warner Brothers movie studios

and a host of other cable news networks and TikTok or a sizable chunk of it as well. That's a lot of power and influence to have in the hands of one or two people. But I think it's also a sign that they think that the way to get in good with the president and with this administration is to take on these media outlets and try to break them, to try to make them produce coverage that the president would prefer. I think my last very quick question is Trump's popularity is declining rapidly, and I think everyone can see it. Do you think that at all will change the calculation media companies make with regard to the president? I think what's interesting about the current moment is we're two weeks into this war.

It's not going well, and the president is already settled on trying to make the media the kind of scapegoat for how the war effort is going, or at least how it's being. perceived. He seems to be using a lot of the strategies that I think we remember from the early days of the Iraq War, where the president was much more popular, the war was much more popular, and news outlets were under a lot of pressure to produce a favorable coverage of the conflict. But because Trump is so unpopular, because the war is already unpopular, it lands, I think, pretty flat with the broader American public. The public likes free speech. speech, the public likes the First Amendment. And so I think that this is not a popular move by the president, but one that he'll certainly try to continue to do. I think from the perspective of the

moguls, whether the president is popular or not, he's going to remain in office for the remainder of his term, absent some major change. And because of that, they're going to have to deal with his regulatory apparatus for the remainder of that period. They can try to wait him out, of course. They can try to take that into their business calculations. They can also consider the possibility that if they are too willing to tow the Trump line, that at some point in the future, a different administration could attempt to use the same powers in the opposite direction. So they are going to have to make those calculations going forward, especially as it doesn't seem like Trump is going to have the kind of popularity that he had at the very beginning of his tenure all the way through.

Matt, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. That was my conversation with Matt Gertz, senior fellow at the Progressive Media Watchdog, Media Matters. This is a show that won't be counted by the FCC or pretty much anyone else. So if you like what we're doing, smash those buttons. Like, subscribe, comment, and send the show to a friend. More to come after some ads. What a Day is brought to you by bookshop.org.

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your first month's subscription and free shipping when you visit neutrophol.com and enter promo code day 10. That's neuterful.com, spelled n-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com, promo code day 10. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pretti was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. is not a headline. That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know? And of course, they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course, they're doing

all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing. They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immune. and they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Here's what else we're following today. The girls, I mean, grown men in Congress, are fighting.

To break down the beef, I wanted to chat with Matt Kirk, Crooked's Washington correspondent, who has been reporting on the biggest stories in politics. Hey, Matt. Hey, Jane. Let's listen to this clip from the confirmation hearing for a new secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. It appears Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul has some thoughts he'd like to share. Look me in the eye and tell me that the assault was justified. So today you'll have your chance.

Today I'll give you that chance to clear the record. Tell it to my face. If that's what you believe, tell it to me today. Tell the world why you believe I deserve. to be assaulted from behind, have six ribs broken and a damaged lung. Tell me to my face, why you think I deserved it. Senator Paul confronted Oklahoma Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen during his confirmation hearing to lead DHS, questioning whether, quote, a man with anger issues should be trusted to run the department filled with ICE agents who all appear to have anger issues.

Their beef, as you can see, stems from Mullen's past comments describing Paul as a freaking snake and saying that he could understand why Paul's neighbor violently attacked him in 2017. Mullen refused to apologize for his comment. Quote, I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it. There's a difference. He said, I love this beef.

I love that they hate each other. And I love the fact that Mullen was saying, like, no, no, no, I didn't say I supported it. I said I understood it, which is a, it's not that distinct a deal. difference. Right. It appears that we're living in the Veeb universe right now based on this hearing. Mullen throughout the entire thing basically tried to prove that he doesn't have anger issues. He also told lawmakers that he regrets describing Alex Pready, the ICU nurse.

Killed by agents in Minneapolis is, quote, deranged. Mullen explained, quote, those words probably should have been retracted. I shouldn't have said that, he said. Sometimes I'm going to make a mistake and I own it. That one, I went out there too fast. I was responding immediately without the facts. That's my fault. That won't happen as secretary. And, you know, despite all this drama, there is almost no chance that he will not be confirmed. We are in Trump 2.0 and the lupious cabinet secretaries have been confirmed so far. Rand Paul, if he really wanted to further this beef, could theoretically slow down the process is the chairman of Senate Homeland Committee, but he probably doesn't think is worth it at this point.

That may have been the most entertaining news, but a more important hearing was going out at the same time. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, FBI director Cash Patel, and other top Trump officials testified at the worldwide threats hearing. Somehow, Cash, admitting that the FBI is purchasing data to track people isn't the biggest news, though we're going to have to really get into that at another time. The big story was that Trump's intelligence team still can't explain why he went to war with Iran. Here's Georgia Democratic Senator John Ossoff, grilling Gabbard.

Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat. Okay. That is up to the president based on a volume of information. No, it is precisely your responsibility to determine what constitutes a threat to United States. This is the worldwide threats hearing, where, as you noted in your opening testimony,

quote, you represent the IC's assessment of threats. You are here to represent the IC's assessment of threats. That's a quote from your own opening statement. It is deeply entertaining that Tulsi Gabbard is stuck in this position. Tulsi Gabbard, a person who sold on the internet no war with Iran. T-shirts. But Matt, you watched most of the hearing. I mean, did any Trump officials give a coherent answer? Well, first off, Aosz argument that this is the worldwide threats hearing was a pretty good one. I wouldn't go that far. Exactly. It's a worldwide threats. And she's supposed to be like, you know, that's not our job to tell you what an imminent threat is. I'm like, yes, it is. That's the job. If with us were on LinkedIn, it would be like bullet point two. I think Gabbard understood that

at a certain point. It took a while to get her there. she just, like, didn't offer any clear response of the intelligence that they gave Trump. Bottom line, we learned nothing of Trump's motivations to strike Iran during that hearing. Both Gabbard and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, insisted that Trump had all the intel he needed to make the decision, but they were extremely vague on what they actually told him. And one thing, Jane, is that there was a lot of awkward silence. And one of these awkward silence during a hearing of this importance, it's usually not a good sign. Nope.

So Angus King, the independent senator from Maine, asked officials whether Trump had been warned about Iran's likely retaliation, which was pretty obvious to everyone in the intel community for decades. I counted. And it took Rackcliffe four seconds to muster a response. Yeah, that's a really long time in answering a question. question about something that you should probably have more of an answer to. But in more news that I hate and dislike, the New York Times released a multi-year investigation into labor activist Cesar Chavez on Wednesday, revealing that the organizer who passed away in 1993 had repeatedly sexually abused women and girls, including the children of United Farm Workers, organizers, and fellow activist Dolores Huerta. The Times spoke to multiple survivors and more than 60 AIDS, organizers, and relatives that reviewed high.

articles, writings, audio recordings, you know, contemporaneous writing, including from some of the survivors to Chavez written when they were very young teens in order to verify their stories. It was deeply disturbing reading, Matt. Really, really disturbing. Yeah, and I believe it took the time something like five years to do this reporting. It was a long project. And there's going to be a lot of accountability to come. But one thing that we could see in the near term is changes to the holiday. Several states, including California, recognize Cizier Chavez Day on March 31st. Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs became the first governor this week to stop recognizing the holiday after the allegations surfaced. In a press conference on Wednesday, California Governor

Gavin Newsom said he's processing the news, but he wouldn't yet commit to making any changes to the holiday per se. Another option could be changing the name of the holiday, but it lands on Chavez's birthday, so there would still be some association there. Gross. It's gross and it's depressing and I hate it. But I don't hate hanging out with you, Matt. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. And that's the news. Before we go, if you're trying to keep up with Trump's war with Iran and why it already feels like it's spinning out, Pod Save the World has you covered. Tommy and Ben break down the rising death toll, the economic fallout, and why even America's closest allies are refusing to get on board. They also dig into the full-blown mega meltdown over the war,

featuring J.D. Vance, scrambling for distance, and Megan Kelly saying way too much about a former colleague. Plus a deep dive on what's happening in Lebanon right now with Middle East expert Kim Hattas. It's chaotic, it's consequential, and it's all happening at once. Listen to Pod Save the World wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review,

contemplate even more Mark Wayne Mullen lore and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how during his hearing before the Senate Homeland Committee Wednesday, Mullen mentioned going on a classified trip in 2016 when he was in the House that he wouldn't detail and that the federal government had no evidence of ever happening. Like me, Water Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and now I have even more questions.

What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded in a mix by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily 4. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill.

Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. The country feels like it's falling apart right before our eyes. and the people inside it are being silenced. So we're going to East 26th Street and Nicolette Avenue, which is where Alex Pready was executed by ICE and Border Patrol. That is not a headline.

That is a human life. And it is all happening right now. Do you worry about your own safety being involved in all this? Yes, but it doesn't really feel like there's another option, you know. And of course, they use a five-year-old child as bait. And of course they're doing all these horrible, bad things because they don't know what they're doing.

They've been told that they're going to get rid of the worst of the worst, then they have absolute immunity. And they've been told that nothing they do will they ever be held accountable for. On my show, Runaway Country, we go where the headlines hit home, from communities under threat to the people fighting to be heard. New episodes of Runaway Country drop every Thursday. subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.