The lines read as if they wouldn’t be spoken until Marlon Brando finished stuffing that cotton in his mouth so he’d sound just right when “The Godfather” cameras rolled. But this time they sounded unmistakably clear.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” a clear-speaking, cotton-free figure said, quite ominously. “…Companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

This wasn’t Brando doing his Hollywood actor thing. It was Brendan Carr doing his Washington regulator/Trump enforcer thing. President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman spoke those words Wednesday afternoon on a right-wing podcast on X – Benny Johnson’s “Benny Show.” And the FCC head’s message apparently came through loudly and clearly to the few TV industry elites who were his real intended audience.

“A very minimal, reasonable step that can be taken,” Carr continued. “…I mean, look, NPR has been defunded, PBS has been defunded, Colbert is retiring. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC. Terry Moran is gone from ABC that is now admitting that they are biased. CBS has now made some commitments to us that they are going to return to more fact-based journalism. So you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel who are frankly powerless and looking for ways to get attention.”

Shortly after the FCC chief spoke those words, ABC’s chiefs announced that their famous comedian and satirist’s late-night show was being summarily canceled. On Monday, Kimmel had said in his opening monologue: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Kimmel’s problem was that neither he nor any reporters covering the case knew the suspected assassin’s beliefs and motivations. So the smart veteran reporters withheld characterizations, awaiting further evidence. It later showed the suspect was more radicalized than others in his famously conservative family.

Indeed, this extended tale involving Kimmel and the FCC’s Carr has seemed to be characterized by swiftly evolving (some might call it flip-flopping) ideological assertions. For years, Carr was known for posting what seemed to be well-reasoned positions and explanations on social media.

In Trump’s first presidential term, on Feb. 14, 2019, Carr posted on X: “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the “public interest.”

During Biden’s presidency, Carr said in a Feb. 22, 2021, press release: “A newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official…”

On May 2, 2022, Carr posted on his FCC’s X account: “President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.”

And posted on Dec. 30, 2023: “Free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”

Now this: The same Carr that said all of that delivered his over-the-top Trumpian admonition on Wednesday’s podcast and later on Fox News after ABC’s execs cast their late-night anchor adrift. Carr and others warned the FCC could cancel the licenses broadcast television stations need for failing to act in the public interest. (Broadcast TV uses public airwaves and requires federal licenses; cable and internet networks don’t.)

By that time, Trump was blaming America’s new rush of assassinations, mass shootings, and other acts of terrorism solely on what he repeatedly called left-wing radical terrorists. Trump didn’t mention the equally numerous and reprehensible number of assassinations, mass shootings and other acts of terrorism that have been committed recently by right-wing radical terrorists.

By the end of the week, Trump’s White House was putting out the word that it plans to target the left-wing organizations in various unspecified financial and legal ways – even though prosecutors haven’t linked any groups to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have… to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” said Trump’s influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”

Actually, they’ll be shaming the names of all Republicans who once thought they were their once-Grand Old Party’s patriotic best. What is unclear today is: How many of those who were once-best still have the courage to stand strong and stop their run amok leaders from destroying the Bill of Rights that once made America the world’s greatest democracy?

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