CNBC Transcript: Exclusive: FCC Commissioner & President-Elect Trump’s Pick for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Speaks with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Today

WHEN: Today, Friday, December 6, 2024

WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk on the Street"

Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with FCC Commissioner & & President-Elect Trump's Pick for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET) today, Friday, December 6. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com:  https://global-deals.online/video/2024/12/06/techs-actions-on-censorship-will-matter-more-than-words-says-trumps-fcc-pick-brendan-carr.html%3C/a%3E.%3C/p%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EAll references must be sourced to CNBC.

DAVID FABER: Joining us now exclusively is FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Good to have you, Commissioner Carr.

BRENDAN CARR: Yeah, great to be with you. Thanks so much.

FABER: You know, we've talked a lot about the plans for a deregulatory agenda, and so I'm curious for you at the FCC and running that agency, what is top of mind in adding to and/or putting into action those deregulatory plans?

CARR: Yeah, there's four main ideas that I've been talking a lot about in terms of the agenda that I want to run. I mean, obviously, first and foremost, I want to make sure I continue to work with the Trump transition team and make sure I understand 100% what their agenda is. But for my part, number one is looking at tech censorship. Number two, there's a whole set of media issues that I think deserve the FCC taking a fresh look at. There's -- third, a whole set of economic issues from permitting reform to spectrum to the space economy, where, frankly, we've got to add some rocket fuel to that process. And then finally, national security. I think particularly with Salt Typhoon top of mind for a lot of people, it's important that we continue to make progress there.

FABER: Yeah, I want to get to Salt Typhoon. We'll talk social media. But I'm curious, you know, when you say things to take a fresh look at, what are you talking about?

CARR: You look on the media side, I think there's no question that trust in media is at an all-time low. That's just not my opinion alone. Jeff Bezos did an op-ed recently where he noted how media used to be the most trusted institution in America. And for a long time, at least they could say we're more trusted than Congress. And now that has passed as well. It's fallen to the bottom. And so I think there's a lot that needs to take place to restore trust and confidence in media. And there's a role for the FCC, at least on the broadcast side, for instance. They have to operate in the public interest. And I think it's probably appropriate for the FCC to take a fresh look at what that requirement looks like.

FABER: So, I mean, is that signaling that others have said you've done, that you're open to TV networks having their licenses revoked if they have, for example, perceived liberal bias?

CARR: Well, look, the law is very clear. The Communications Act says you have to operate in the public interest. And if you don't, yes, one of the consequences is potentially losing your license. And of course, that's on the table. I mean, look, broadcast licenses are not sacred cows. At the same time, when you think about media, separate into two issues, right? You've got the national networks, for instance, ABC, NBC, CBS. They provide a lot of the content that the actual licensed local broadcasts disseminate. And so we need to look at empowering those local broadcasters to serve their local communities, even if that's in conflict with the interests of those national networks. I mean, at the end of the day, you've got all this content from Hollywood and New York that's being distributed down through these local broadcasters. Let's make sure they feel empowered to do the right thing by their local community.

FABER: It's funny, when you mentioned, I thought you perhaps were going to talk about some of the antiquated rules around ownership, whether it be cross-ownership, foreign ownership. You know, what about that side of things? Could you imagine a scenario under which CNN and Fox, for example, are owned by the same parent company?

CARR: We need to look at those issues as well. I mean, if you look at big tech, for instance, obviously they can reach 100% of the country, but local broadcasters are limited by FCC rules to only reaching a certain portion of the company. So I'm very open-minded on those separate sets of issues as well, is how do we make sure we get investment in local journalism, investment in local news? For too long, the FCC stood by the wayside as newspapers across the country closed by the dozen. There was a lot of reasons for that, but we also had rules that prevented investment in local newspapers that certainly didn't help. So we're going to try to walk and chew gum at the same time. There is that whole set of ownership issues that I want to take a fresh look at as well.

MELISSA LEE: When you say, Brendan, that a broadcaster could lose its license if it's too liberal, who determines what too liberal is? Is there an example in the marketplace currently that is too liberal? Is there a broadcaster right now that you think is too liberal? And does the same follow for a broadcaster that's too conservative?

CARR: Yeah, well, just to clarify there, I didn't say too liberal. I said public interest.

LEE: OK.

CARR: And that's something the FCC needs to take a look at. What does a public interest mean? What is a narrow interest in comparison? I'm open to all of that. You know, look, at the end of the day, obviously there's a statutory provision that prevents the FCC from engaging in censorship. I don't want to be the speech police. But there is something that's different about broadcasters than, say, podcasters, where you have to operate in a public interest. So right now, all I'm saying is maybe we should start a rulemaking to take a look at what that means. There's other issues as well. Look, there's a news distortion complaint that's still hanging out there involving CBS, with NBC and SNL, we had some issues potentially with the equal time provision. I just think we need to sort of reinvigorate the FCC's approach to these issues, as Congress has envisioned.

LEE: Are you basically saying to broadcasters, be on guard under my watch?

CARR: I'm just saying follow the law. I mean, this law has been on the books for a long time. It's not my decision to hold broadcasters to a public interest obligation. It's Congress. And if they don't like that, then they should go to Congress to change the law. But my job at the FCC is to enforce the law passed by Congress, and that's what I intend to do.

FABER: Brendan, when it comes to your focus in terms of what you call censorship, you've discussed the fact of using and the fact that the tech companies perhaps use Section 230 as a shield and collude not to compete on speech. How aggressive do you see yourself getting beyond that letter that I recently read, of course, that you sent as a commissioner to some of the big tech companies as well in terms of their use of this firm called NewsGuard?

CARR: Yeah, look, this absolutely has to happen. We've been sort of living under this wave of unprecedented censorship the last couple of years. It has to come to an end. There's a lot the FCC can do. I look forward to working with the FTC on this as well. And frankly, this isn't just a separate issue from the economy. There's a straight line between censorship of words and censorship of ideas and a wet blanket over economic growth. So I think all of it ends up being connected. What the FTC has said, Commissioner Ferguson in particular, is if you're agreeing to effectively not compete on content moderation, that's really no different than an agreement not to compete on, say, pricing. So I would look for ways the FCC and FTC can partner to make sure that we not have collusion with respect to suppression of First Amendment protected rights.

FABER: I want to talk a bit about satellites. And obviously, Elon Musk is an important advisor to this administration. He wants to put up another 22,500 satellites, for example. Are you supportive of those efforts and the efforts to open up more spectrum that I believe is already underway for satellite providers, whether it be Starlink or Project Kuiper, for example, from Amazon?

CARR: Yeah, absolutely. And you're right to talk about Starlink and Kuiper. I mean, look, I talk a lot about Starlink because it's the brand name that a lot of people are familiar with, but it's sort of like Kleenex when it comes to these low-Earth orbit satellites. I want, you know, Kuiper to succeed. I want Starlink to succeed. And it's for national security purposes, too. Look, China is putting up their own version of Starlink and Kuiper right now. And think about the geopolitical implications of China being able to provide high-speed Internet all across the world, pairing it with Belt and Road, their own content moderation filters. So we should want America's innovators, Kuiper, Starlink, to have all the support they need to succeed, and that's what I'm going to try to do with the FCC.

FABER: You know, when the wireless providers terrestrially want to expand, though they've got to buy more Spectrum, it ends up in a good amount of money going to the U.S. Treasury. Not the case when you're using Spectrum, it would seem, and you're a satellite provider. Why is that?

CARR: Yeah, there's a law passed by Congress that just puts them in a different bucket with respect to fees and paying for Spectrum, so they're differently situated there. Also, when it comes to Spectrum authority, that's lapsed at the FCC, and we need to get that back. We've basically gone nowhere the last couple of years on Spectrum. During the first Trump administration, we freed up over 6,000 megahertz of Spectrum, and the Biden administration has largely stalled out. So first things first, we've got to go back to Congress, we've got to get our Spectrum auction authority renewed, and then we need to sort of start moving on freeing up Spectrum with the same pace and cadence we did in 2017 through 2020. I mean, look, the Spectrum coverage is a little bare. We haven't done a lot of permitting reform, but President Trump has turned this thing around once before with his policies. We're going to start doing it again here.

FABER: Yeah, actually, on that note, and you may have already given an answer, but I'd love you to listen to an answer that John Stankey, the CEO of AT&T, gave me earlier this week after he wrote an editorial discussing the fact that there needs to be more Spectrum allocation in the U.S. Please take a listen and then give me an answer to what you hear.

JOHN STANKEY: The reality is that when we project 80% bandwidth increases over the next five years, if no new Spectrum comes into the ecosystem, you're going to have congested highways, just like you might have on an interstate, too many cars trying to get down a lane. And then you start to get into rationing to supply and demand, which means if there's no more capacity, ultimately prices go up. And that's not a good thing for the consumer.

FABER: He points out the Defense Department has an awful lot of Spectrum. He seems to want to get his hands on it.

CARR: Yeah, I think he's right. And Senator Ted Cruz, who I think is positioned to come in and lead the Commerce Committee, has said that freeing up more Spectrum is going to be his number one priority. And I agree wholeheartedly with that. When you free up Spectrum, it drives down prices for consumers. You can see traditional mobile wireless, for instance, competing in the in-home broadband market with cable. I think that's a great thing for consumers. It's also part of our national security interest. When we free up Spectrum, the world takes notice. Capital comes here. We get to set the rules of the road on the standard setting process. So there's no question we've fallen into sort of a deep malaise on Spectrum under Biden administration. I hope we get a chance to turn that around while also protecting DOD. I mean, look, they've got national security missions that we can't impinge on either. But we need a better balance than we've had the last couple of years.

FABER: Yeah. Back to satellites. I am curious, given Musk seems to be speaking to a lot of people. Are you in regular contact with him? Have you been discussing his ambitions and or those of the country when it comes to what you want to try and accomplish with geostationary?

CARR: I've met with Musk a couple of times. But frankly, I've met far more often and far more frequently with the heads of many other regulated entities. And so I think it's important that we go forward. Every single person in this country should get a fair shake. We're coming out of an administration where, again, from my perspective, I think Elon Musk was given the short end of the stick from a regulatory perspective for political reasons, not policy reasons. If he's right, I'm going to agree with him. If he's wrong, I'm not. But I'm not going to try to sort of strike some balance of, you know, percentage of wins and losses for him. Because, frankly, I think that in and of itself would be corruption. But if he's right, I will agree with him. If he's wrong, I won't.

FABER: Finally, Salt Typhoon. We have not discussed that, that much. Perhaps we should be more. It's not just obviously telecommunications networks here in the United States. It seems to be around the world. Part of a decades-long effort by the Chinese in terms of espionage. What are you going to do about it as FCC Chair?

CARR: Look, this is deeply concerning. The current FCC Chair obviously gets access to a lot more information than a regular commissioner. I'm starting to get those chair-level briefings. I had one with the IC community recently. And I've got to say, it was deeply, deeply concerning, the information I heard. It made me want to basically smash my phone at the end of it. And I don't say that to be flippant, but to try to give you and the viewers sort of just some sort of visceral sense of the situation we're in. We should not be in this situation. In many ways, the horse is out of the barn at this point. And we need all hands-on deck to try to address this and rein this in. I'm going to work with the transition team, make sure we're supporting the IC community right now. But we're in a tough, tough spot with this particular issue. It's a serious one. And we've got to support them to try to resolve this quickly.

FABER: Yeah. Finally, if I could come back to, you know, what you seem to be focused on in terms of a number of the interviews I've watched you give recently on Fox, for example. Smashing the censorship cartel. I mean, just give our viewers a sense there then, Commissioner, as to what you think the interplay is going to be like between you and big tech, between you and Alphabet and Meta and on from there. And what are your expectations when it comes to that?

CARR: Look, they've been saying a lot of the right things recently about coming out of this era of censorship and trying to embrace a true diversity of opinion. But to me, the actions are going to matter a lot more than the words. Section 230 is an issue we should take a look at, at the FCC, we can do so in a way that's going to promote more speech and less censorship. We have other authorities at the FCC where we can promote transparency. As we talked about, we can work with the Federal Trade Commission to make sure there's not collusion to suppress speech. And, again, our equipment authorization process, there's no piece of technology that can come into the U.S. without going through the FCC's review. And that's one where we need to continue to take a look at, in particular on the national security front, that I'm going to want to try to reinvigorate here.

FABER: Yeah. You send them a letter on November 13th, at least, to Pichai, Zuckerberg, Nadella and Tim Cook. You gave them until the 10th of December to answer. Have they already done so in terms of the questions that you had in this letter?

CARR: No, not yet. And that was just an initial letter. I mean, I talk a lot about this concept of the censorship cartel and people ask me, what does that mean? It's pretty simple. You have a lot of censorship that these companies are doing on their own. You also have secondarily pressure, particularly the last couple of years from the Biden administration to censor. But also you've got this cohort of advertising and marketing agencies that are sort of the tip of the spear to enforce a lot of this censorship. NewsGuard, in my own opinion, is one of them. And so that letter focused on NewsGuard. NewsGuard has come out and attempted to sort of defend themselves. But I'll send them a letter as well because I've got questions for them.

FABER: Commissioner Carr, appreciate you taking time. Look forward to further discussions once you take office. Thank you.

CARR: Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks.