Ted Cruz blasts FCC Chair Brendan Carr's criticism of ABC as mob tactics 'right out of Goodfellas'

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday slammed Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr’s threats to pull ABC’s broadcast license over Jimmy Kimmel's comments on Charlie Kirk as something out of the mob movie "Goodfellas." 

ABC pulled Kimmel's show off the air indefinitely on Wednesday over backlash to the late night host's Monday monologue in which he claimed that the "MAGA gang" was trying to politically benefit from the murder of Kirk.

Carr recently suggested pulling ABC's broadcasting license if the network did not take any action against Kimmel.

"Look, I like Brendan Carr, he’s a good guy, he’s the chairman of the FCC, I work closely with him. But what he said there is dangerous as hell,” Cruz said on his "Verdict" podcast. "I got to say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar, going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it.'”

Cruz said that he was not a fan of Kimmel, who has mocked him many times, but warned that comments like Carr's could be bad for Republicans when Democrats return to power.

"If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives," he said. “Going down this road, there will come a time when a Democrat wins again – wins the White House … they will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly. And that is dangerous."

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.