Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has accused Comcast of “news distortion” over its networks’ coverage of Kilmar Armando Abrego, a Maryland man who was deported to El Salvador due to what the government said was an “administrative error.”
“Comcast outlets spent days misleading the American public,” Carr wrote in a reply to a post on X, which criticized the Comcast-owned MSNBC and Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN for not covering a White House press briefing about the deportation of immigrants. “Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest.”
During the briefing on Wednesday, the Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the administration’s decision to deport Abrego Garcia and accused him of being a gang member. Earlier this month, a Supreme Court judge ordered the government to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US, as the government violated a previous court order preventing his deportation to El Salvador.
Trump officials have since lambasted Comcast and other media companies for not airing the briefing, with White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung calling the lack of coverage “shameful.” In February, Carr opened an investigation into Comcast over its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and later suggested that the FCC won’t approve mergers and acquisitions if companies support DEI.
As pointed out by Deadline, the FCC’s own website states that the agency’s authority over news distortion is “narrow” and it will only investigate if there’s “evidence showing that the broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners.”
The Verge reached out to Comcast with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.