Ted Cruz Fights to Protect Jimmy Kimmel, Leftwing Broadcasters from Trump Policies

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is rushing to Jimmy Kimmel’s rescue as the unlikely allies fight President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect taxpayer-owned airwaves from inundation by leftwing propaganda and hate speech.

The Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Cruz, marked up the JAWBONE Act on Wednesday morning. It now awaits action before the Senate.

The bill might be more about Cruz, who has a record cozying up to establishment media, earning chits ahead of an expected anti-Trumpism presidential run.

Most notoriously, Cruz pushed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) which would have created and protected an establishment media cartel and put conservative media outlets out of business.

Cruz’s latest bill‘s purpose, according to the Texas Senator and his Democrat ally, Sen. Ron Wyden (OR), would make it illegal for an agency, or an officer or employee of the United States, including the President and Vice President, from coercing or attempting to coerce a broadcaster.

The bill would even allow plaintiffs to seek monetary damages.

But if the bill were to become law, overzealous Democrat state attorneys general, or even private citizens, could bring suits against Trump for remarking or posting about content decisions of broadcasters — which he has done many times previously, including in response to heinous personal attacks made on government-owned airwaves.

For example, after Kimmel, host of ABC’s the Jimmy Kimmel Show, described Second Lady Melania Trump as an expecting widow and Trump posted on TRUTH, “Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” Trump would have been in legal jeopardy if JAWBONE was law.

Additionally, Trump’s calls for broadcasters’ licenses to be revoked due to their refusal to air presidential addresses — newsworthy events in the public interest to broadcast — or show skewed or inaccurate news could have him in hot water.

Right now, Trump fighting back against hostile public figures is constitutionally protected speech. If JAWBONE passed, lawfare operatives like New York Attorney General Letitia James, or Jimmy Kimmel himself, could bring a civil suit and seek monetary penalties against the President for incentivizing the broadcaster to take a content action.

Simply put, the Cruz bill would empower the radical left, which already has institutional advantages in Hollywood and in the establishment media.

It would authorize Democrat AGs like James and the radical left in the trial bar to bring financially ruinous lawsuits against Republicans any time they push back against news media, including against false stories that libel or defame those Republican officials.

Once in court, Republicans would begin at a disadvantage.

The JAWBONE Act effectively shifts the burden to the defendants, meaning the Republicans are guilty until proven innocent by requiring them to show that their pushback legitimately fit within one of the bill’s narrow exceptions to liability. It also authorizes partisans to go straight into expensive discovery and authorizes extensive financial liability, including “punitive damages.”

While there is legitimate work to be done to prevent the type of campaign that the Biden Administration ran to censor everyday Americans, the JAWBONE Act is a gift to the left who would weaponize the bill to crush and silence conservatives while extending their control over all forms of media.

Wyden praised the bill ahead of markup, saying in a statement shared by Cruz:

Nearly all of Americans’ speech — including TV news, online streams, and social media — flows through private corporations that are highly susceptible to government pressure. Regular Americans can’t count on those companies to stand up to government jawboning, they need a way to level the playing field. The most blatant example is Trump threatening cable companies because he doesn’t like their late-night shows, but jawboning isn’t partisan, and it isn’t new. The JAWBONE Act would provide Americans with the ability to sue when the government illegally coerces censorship and create transparency around government requests to censor speech those companies to stand up to government jawboning, they need a way to level the playing field.

His statement made no mention of the fact that the “private corporations” he mentions broadcast on publicly-owned airwaves, and have agreed to operate under certain parameters in exchange for free use of taxpayer-owned airwaves.

While the bill has yet to receive significant media attention — perhaps by design — it has one prominent Democrat supporter.

Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission, endorsed the bill and attacked the Trump Administration, saying, “We’re now seeing an unprecedented number of investigations and enforcement actions launched against broadcasters as part of a broader campaign of censorship and control aimed at silencing government critics and punishing dissenting voices.”

Groups who support the JAWBONE Act include the ACLU, First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Americans for Tax Reform, and Public Knowledge, a progressive tech/telecommunications advocacy group.

Cruz, who is plotting an anti-Trump presidential campaign in 2028, has had a rough go of it lately as he amplifies his opposition to the Trump agenda. During an appearance on The View earlier in September, leftwing anti-Trump host Whoopi Goldberg was compelled to defend Cruz from a booing crowd. Days later, in his home state of Texas, his appearance during an ESPN broadcast was interrupted with overwhelming chants of “Ted, you suck!”

Bradley Jaye is Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye or email him at bjaye@breitbart.com.