FCC Chair Retweets Trump Call To Fire Seth Meyers ‘Immediately’

In his latest “Hey, look over there!” distraction ploy, President Donald Trump once again ranted about late-night comedy critic Seth Meyers on Truth Social last week. 

The latest diversion hit all of Trump’s favorite criticisms about late night — namely lack of talent and bad Nielsen ratings. “NBC’s Seth Meyers is suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). He was viewed last night in an uncontrollable rage, likely due to the fact that his ‘show’ is a Ratings DISASTER. Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!”

Those ratings jabs don’t hit the way Trump thinks they do. But Meyers has doubled down on his late-night insults since the President said that Late Night jokes at his expense were “probably illegal” earlier this month.  

Come on. What are Meyers and his late-night counterparts supposed to do in the wake of a torrent of Jeffrey Epstein emails that prominently feature Trump’s name? Seth didn’t sit out the situation in the wake of Trump’s threats, joking about a message “in which Jeffrey Epstein says that President Trump, quote, ‘knew about the girls.’ It's what Chuck Schumer is calling, ‘Strike one, Mr. President!’”

Meyers devoted an entire segment to the emails. “I'm no detective, but if … you find an email from Jeffrey Epstein that says Trump knew about the girls, that sounds pretty damning. This is like if you're investigating a murder suspect and you search their house, and in the closet, they have a shoebox labeled ‘murder weapon inside’ on the top, and on the side, it says, ‘Yes, that murder.’”

Trump’s angry response was predictable, but the call for Meyers’ immediate dismissal got more chilling when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr retweeted the demand on his X account. That looks like a co-sign from the government official best equipped to harass NBC into bending to Trump’s wishes. It’s a threat disguised as a social media share.

Carr has been all over the map when it comes to late-night comedy. He threatened ABC over Jimmy Kimmel, warning, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” while encouraging local affiliates to take action against jokes they didn’t like.

He quickly walked that all back, telling the Concordia Summit that he wasn’t making threats to revoke broadcasting licences “in any way, shape or form.”

But Carr is at it again, endorsing Trump’s threats in a public forum. Or is he? It’s easy to imagine Carr expressing plausible deniability: “I was only sharing the President’s thoughts on political discourse!” Carr gets to have his late-night cake and eat it too — his repost is red meat for those who think Trump criticism should be illegal, but his “presented without comment” take gives Carr an out when he’s called on the carpet over pesky details like free speech. 

In the end, it’s likely all noise and bluster, a red herring distracting from some uncomfortable truths in Epstein’s emails. But could Trump’s anger have real ramifications for Seth Meyers? Just ask Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.