Burns had pressed Carr to explain how exactly he came to issue a highly unprecedented order forcing ABC to apply early to renew its eight local broadcast licenses just one day after the man who appointed Carr, Donald Trump, and his wife Melania called for ABC to be punished for a joke made by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Later in the interview, Carr repeated his policy: “As a general matter, I don’t speak publicly about conversations with the White House, or whether they happen or don’t happen.” While Carr may not be keen to detail his relations with the Trump administration, a trove of FCC documents – obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and lawsuit filed by the advocacy group Democracy Forward, and provided to the Guardian – shed light on the close working relationship between Carr, his top staffers and members of Trump’s White House team. Between 12 March 2025 and 11 February 2026, Carr attended at least eight meetings at the White House, according to the records, and had at least three scheduled calls with administration officials, including two conversations with chief of staff Susie Wiles.
He also spoke by phone with administration officials such as controversial health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. In addition, the files provide insight into Carr’s media strategy, including communications with producers at Fox News, and make public previously undisclosed meetings he has held with media titans such as Fox Corp chief executive Lachlan Murdoch and Sinclair Broadcast Group chair David Smith. For example, on 29 August 2025, Carr was listed as the organizer of a “White House deputies” meeting focused on “FAA/Spectrum issues,” which also included chief of staff Greg Watson and Arpan Sura, a senior counsel focused on spectrum, space and artificial intelligence.
Another White House meeting, in November 2025, was titled “Drones – Principals meeting”, making obvious the focus. But a 2 June 2025 calendar entry shows only that Carr attended a “WH mtg”, giving no further details on the nature of the visit. While it’s not uncommon for FCC chairs appointed by a president of their party to meet and confer with the administration, Carr is known to be unusually well-synched with the priorities of the Trump White House, particularly with its focus on using the levers of government to punish the legacy television networks that Trump has derided as fake news.
Countering past precedent, he has denied that the agency is “independent” because the president can remove commissioners at any time. ABC cited Carr’s “repeated public statements confirming his allegiance to the president and the president’s agenda” in a lawsuit filed Tuesday challenging the FCC’s early license renewal order. Tom Wheeler, who served as chair of the FCC under President Barack Obama, called the meeting logs “very interesting” and “lots of fun”, particularly those memorializing conversations between Carr and Wiles in the winter of 2025.
But, he told the Guardian: “I don’t think it’s terribly unusual.” In the summer of 2025, a calendar entry noted that White House office of the deputy chief of staff for strategic implementation Nick Luna would “call BC cell”, referring to Carr’s cellphone. In early February of this year, the calendar shows a scheduled call between Carr and health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, noting “Secretary Kennedy to call Chairman Carr Directly” for what appears to be a quick 15-minute conversation. *Secretary Kennedy to call Chairman Brendan Carr Directly* A few days later, Carr was in the West Wing of the White House for a meeting with director for domestic policy council Vince Haley, described by the Wall Street Journal last year as “the Most Influential Trump Adviser You’ve Probably Never Heard Of”. Also in February, Carr traveled to the Department of Justice to meet with Omeed Assefi, who served as acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division.
No reason was given for the meeting, though there is obvious overlap between the regulatory oversight functions provided by the justice department and the FCC over media mergers that involve the transfer of television licenses. There is nothing unusual or nefarious about the chair of the FCC meeting with the leaders of media companies his agency regulates – though such meetings are kept private unless they are directly related to an agency matter, which would then require a publicly filed “ex parte” acknowledgement of the conversation. Notably, though, most of Carr’s meetings with media executives (and personalities) represent companies that appeal to conservatives.
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