FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Takes Aim at Comcast Over Coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr took aim at CNN and MSNBC, deeming their coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation “news distortion.”

On Wednesday, Carr took to X to share his thoughts about how the Comcast outlets were covering the Garcia situation, responding to a post by White House director of communications assistant Steven Cheung.

“Comcast outlets spent days misleading the American public—implying that Abrego Garcia was merely a law abiding U.S. citizen, just a regular ‘Maryland man,'” Carr wrote. “When the truth comes out, they ignore it. Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn’t cut it.”

He continued, “Abrego Garcia came to America illegally from El Salvador, was validated as a member of the violent MS13 gang—a transnational criminal organization—and was denied bond by an immigration court for failure to show he would not pose a danger to others. Why does Comcast ignore these facts of obvious public interest?”

Comcast did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment.

Carr’s use of the term “news distortion” raises the specter of him pursuing an FCC complaint against Comcast or MSNBC on those grounds, as he is at present in the battle with CBS over its “60 Minutes” interview of Kamala Harris last October. However, the FCC has less authority to police the content of cable channels such as MSNBC than it does the broadcast TV stations owned by CBS.

Garcia, a father and a husband to an American woman, has been the subject of a media firestorm ever since he was suddenly deported in March from the United States to an El Salvadorian prison due to an “administrative error,” according to the Department of Justice.