Obama To Media Companies: 'Stand Up Rather Than Capitulate'

By John Amato — September 18, 2025

Former President Barack Obama told media corporations through social media to stop capitulating and fight back against Donald Trump's thuggery and assault on constitutional rights.

Trump has been using the FCC as his personal hammer to inflict as much pain against talk show hosts, comedians and programs he considers unfriendly. Trump has used the threat to derail media mergers worth billions of dollars to rain pain down on all parties involved.

If we lived in normal times, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr would be fired for weaponizing the FCC against media mergers to force Trump's vengeance upon them. What Carr said about Jimmy Kimmel was a lie/ The ABC host never criticized Charlie Kirk, only commented on the right-wing frenzy against the left.

I wouldn't doubt many top officials within these media conglomerates are Republicans who have no qualm bashing their own employees to curry favor with Demented Donald.

This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.

— Barack Obama (@barackobama.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T14:10:39.425Z

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

— Barack Obama (@barackobama.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T14:10:39.424Z

Representatives Hakeem Jeffries, Aguilar, Lieu, Neguse, and Delbene put out a statement saying Brendan Carr engaged in a corrupt abuse of power and has disgraced the office by bullying ABC, the employer of Jimmy Kimmel.

House Democratic Leadership Statement on the Suspension of Jimmy Kimmel.

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social) 2025-09-18T13:03:42.639Z

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