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FCC reclassifies late-night jokes about Donald Trump as hostile signal jamming

BY: @deadpan_reporterJUL 24, 2026
└─ FIG. 01 FCC Chairman Brendan Carr gestures emphatically at a podium with small hands gripping the lectern, flanked by a TSA screener scanning the microphone with a radio device, a hotel valet handing out golf scorecards, and a CBS producer clutching scripts in the agency's briefing room.

Asserting his authority over the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced Tuesday that televised jokes about the president will now be regulated as hostile signal jamming. The new framework allows the agency to immediately revoke the broadcast licenses of networks found transmitting unauthorized comedic frequencies.

Under the updated Title II guidelines, a late-night punchline directed at the executive branch is now legally indistinguishable from a pirate radio station drowning out air traffic control. Carr issued formal notices to NBC, CBS, and ABC, warning executives that any future attempts to broadcast humorous observations regarding the president’s appearance, cabinet appointments, or golf scores will be treated as malicious attacks on the public airwaves. Broadcasters were given 48 hours to install federal signal scrubbers designed to automatically bleep unapproved satire.

“

We are seeing a dangerous spike in unregulated sarcasm polluting the VHF and UHF spectrums, which severely threatens the structural integrity of the president's mood.

—Marcus Halberstram, Deputy Director of Satirical Containment at the FCC

To enforce the mandate, the commission has begun deploying specialized spectrum analyzers outside studios in Manhattan and Burbank to detect anomalous comedic waveforms during the 11:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. broadcast window. According to technical documentation released by the agency, a standard monologue setup—consisting of a host, a desk, and a photograph of the president projected over their right shoulder—now requires the same federal clearances as operating a commercial nuclear reactor.

Carr concluded his press briefing by clarifying that while verbal jokes are currently classified as Class 3 interference, unauthorized physical impressions involving accordion-style hand gestures will be federally prosecuted as domestic wire fraud.

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s war on the First Amendment

As the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr has authority over the nation’s TV, radio, and internet. But since Donald Trump was elected to his second term, Carr has wielded that power to threaten broadcasters that have exercised their free speech rights to make jokes about the president. He was even able to […]

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