We are discussing a problem today. The FCC is currently short a commissioner, and the Biden administration and Senate Democrats just can't seem to get that seat filled despite having nominated an amazing person. She's calledGigi Sohn. The FCC is stuck with two Democrats and two Republicans because of the inability to confirm Gigi. The commission that regulates telecom in the US is unable to get much done. The Biden administration can't expand rural broadband or restore net neutrality. The Senate has yet to vote on the confirmation of Sohn, who was nominated by President Biden a year ago.
We have been looking into this story for a while now, trying to figure out what is going on, and we found a very frustrating answer.
I think it is corruption. "We can call it a lot of things, but what we're seeing is just ordinary corruption." Karl has been a telecom reporter for a long time. He is one of the people we talked to for this story.
We are doing something different with this show. You are going to hear from a group of people who know what happened to Sohn. The story has strange alliances, bad actors, and a good old fashioned family drama. It sheds light on the huge problems afflicting politics and policy in the US today. Karl has been covering the telecom sector for 22 years and has never seen anything like this.
Here is a list of people and organizations who refused to speak to us on the record. It's a crazy one.
The fight over Sohn's nomination is important. We're here.
The transcript was lightly edited to make it clearer.
The story begins with good old fashioned confusion.
It doesn't make sense that this has taken so long.
Karl Bode is talking about a woman.
If you talk to anyone in telecom policy on either side of the aisle, she is very popular. She knows how to do things well. People appointed to the FCC have a small amount of experience.
I tracked this story because I agree with Karl. I've interviewed her before, and she's written before about making internet service better and cheaper for regular people. I have been confused as to why someone like Sohn couldn't be confirmed to the FCC.
Over the course of her career, she has been popular with everyone, even after she was nominated to the FCC. She is a telecom regulator who is willing to work across the aisle.
Thank you to the members of the committee. I was nominated by President Biden and will be considered by the committee for a seat on the FCC.
She talked about her background at her first hearing.
Nilay Patel hosts a show called "Decoded" about big ideas and other problems.
Reports from the front lines of the Vietnam War, Watergate, and other critical events of the sixties and seventies were always on the radio in my house. I learned how to use communications networks to inform public discourse and promote democratic values there. I went to Boston University to study Communications Law and Policy because of my love of local broadcasting. I have been advocating for policies that ensure that modern communications networks are available to everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live, for over 30 years.
The lawyer is trained. She is a fellow at Georgetown law. I've talked to a lot of people from Public Knowledge over the years and she co-founded and ran the organization. She was a natural choice to be a commissioner since the FCC is supposed to advocate for consumers. She was an advisor to the former chairman of the FCC when it adopted its strongest ever net neutrality rules.
If you were talking to a group of people a year ago, they would have loved her.
The reporter was Makena Kelly. David Goodfriend said the same thing.
David Goodfriend said that thousands of people have reached out to their members of Congress.
The co-CEO of Free Press advocated for an open internet. He had some things to say about the person.
She has shown she can work with anyone on the political spectrum and she has been consistent in her advocacy for what is right.
She has been an advocate for what is right time and time again, and she has shown she can work with anyone on the political spectrum to get things done. You need someone like that at the FCC.
One more person was in agreement with him. Chris Ruddy is the CEO of Newsmax, a cable network that supports the far right.
Chris Ruddy supports her nomination. I know her for a long time. She's a person of integrity. We probably don't agree on many things. We don't agree on a lot of big issues. I would say I'm conservative if she said she was liberal.
Is she going to agree with me on everything? I think that the fact that every big company doesn't like her suggests that she's on a path that will look out for the consumer and the little guy and gal.
Chris Ruddy will give you more information later. If a lot of people on the other side of the aisle love her, why can't she be confirmed to the FCC?
At the time, it seemed like the Biden administration and its slim Democratic majority in the Senate just couldn't get this done, because it really couldn't get much done. The Democrats had a lot of policy priorities that weren't happening. Things began to change around the summer.
There appears to be a breakthrough on the economic agenda of the president.
The CHIPS and Science Act was signed by President Biden.
There was a lot of legislation passed.
The President is going to sign the PACT Act tomorrow and the Inflation Reduction Act by the end of the week.
The Democrats were getting things done with the help of the usual hold outs.
The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest US investment to help fight climate change.
There wasn't any movement onGigi. We finally got to the bottom of what happened.
There is a tug-of-war going on between a very small number of powerful corporate interests and the public.
The lawyer is David Goodfriend. David and Gigi have known each other for many years.
According to David Goodfriend, there are two companies that have been financing a campaign to stop the Senate from voting on a nominee for the US Patent and Trademark Office. Lobbyists for those two companies were paid to try to get votes against Sohn.
Here they are, after we promised they would be. Murdoch is on the same side as the Roberts family and the company that owns MSNBC. These are not your friends.
In two politically critical states, the Fox News machine and the cable company have joined up to block a woman.
The lobbyist who worked for Senator Manchin when he was governor of West Virginia was hired by the cable company. The reason why Senator Manchin hasn't said which way he will vote is because his former chief of staff was hired by the cable company.
The same thing happened in Arizona.
According to David Goodfriend, in January of this year, Comcast hired a lobbyist named Kirk Adams. Adams has to file a lobbying disclosure, which he did, and it shows on his own disclosure that he expects to work on FCC nominations. He changed it to telecommunications policy after recanting.
According to an article in Ars Technica, this was an attempt by the company to swing the vote against Sohn. They have done it in Arizona, they have done it in West Virginia, and they hope that they can stop her from being confirmed.
This is the location where I should tell you that the NBCUniversal division is a minority investor in the parent company. Murdoch's Fox News and The Wall Street Journal were running negative stories about the person. We were also told about this by Karl Bode.
If you spend 30 minutes objectively researching her record, none of these are supported.
Sohn hates the police, she wants to censor conservatives, she is bad for media diversity, and all of the Fox properties have been very active in pushing things. If you spend 30 minutes objectively researching her record, you'll find that none of these are true.
There are a few Fox News segments about the girl. One Fox anchor talked to Ted Cruz and another guest mentioned the Chinese Communist Party.
The news anchor wants to know what you think of this woman. She seems like she has a radical agenda, despite the name and glasses that make me think twice. She is now in charge of this place.
Ted Cruz is a Republican senator from Texas. She doesn't like Fox News. She has been outspoken and partisan.
The word "hack" should be next to the photo of Gigi Sohn. She wants to take the license away. This is a bridge that would not be crossed by any other country, and it will be turned into the FCC.
The argument on Fox is that if she is added to the FCC, she will censor Fox. There is no evidence that she is going to do that. The FCC doesn't have a power that she could use. She would encourage Fox to say whatever they wanted.
The FCC has no control over free expression online and that is why I don't understand that argument.
The person is from the Electronic Frontier Foundation
It isn't its job when it comes to telecommunications. The FCC does not tell phone companies that they have to cut you off of phone service for making lewd phone calls. The internet is under that bucket. That is unrelated to anything. The FCC doesn't have any say in what speech is allowed on the internet.
We could go down here and take a long and complicated path. The government can regulate broadcast speech if it is in the public interest because the public owns the airwaves. Things like indecency complaints, the seven dirty words, and fines for the Super Bowl are done by the FCC there. The government can tell ABC and CBS what is and isn't allowed on the public's airwaves. There is no legal basis for the FCC to regulate what happens when internet and cable companies don't broadcast on public spectrum.
The FCC allows people to use the public airwaves for TV and radio. They have certain rules about that because it is a public place. The rules don't apply if you're on cable because that's not a public airwave Basically, that is what it is. There is a difference between something that is public and something that is private.
Fox News says to watch out for a Democratic FCC Commissioner. She will stop you from saying anything. The rest of Murdoch's media properties have also been the target of this campaign.
News Corp's chief communications officer Jim Kennedy denied a coordinated attack after we reached out to him. The Wall Street Journal and its editorial board speak for themselves. News Corp didn't lobby for or against the nominee.
A lot of people are pearl-clutching over something.
The Wall Street Journal and Fox News are still attacking her even though they denied a coordinated attack.
There is a lot of like, "oh my God," pearl-clutching over stray social media posts.
That is CraigAaron again.
There's a lot of quotes taken out of context, like organizations that take a lot of money from big telecom and cable interests, coming out with push polls.
A push poll is a poll with suggestive questions that trick people into agreeing with something.
Craig said, "Oh, I think the police are very concerned because Gigi once said something about encryption and questioned her stance on rural America." Suddenly, you see it in an ad, and then you see it on the editorial page of the WSJ. A lot of people who live to take company money to ruin people on their behalf start trying to say mean things about the candidate. The noise floor starts to reach policymakers and decision makers.
Craig mentioned a Wall Street Journal op-ed, but there have been several Journal opinion pieces. My favorite was "Gigi Sohn and the Police: Democratic senators are at risk if they vote for Biden's progressive FCC nominee"
The police thing is not what it appears to be. The Fraternal Order of Police claimed in a press release that 61 percent of people liked it when they said thatGigi Sohn had supported de funding the police. The Fraternal Order of Police refused to give us more information about the questions.
Adding fuel to the fire is that she is on the board of the EFF. You have heard from someone. The police don't like that tech companies turn user information over to them.
The Senate Republicans have grabbed onto a few things. I think that Fox News has had the most negative impact on our democracy. State-sponsored propaganda has few if any opposing views. There is a hearing about that. At her first confirmation hearing, a Republican asked about that one.
There are a lot of comments about Fox News here. Do you dislike them?
I'm pretty direct, anyone who knows me knows that.
You're referring to my social media posts that have become famous. I know they are concerning to some and anyone who knows me knows that. My role as a public interest advocate led to the creation of them. The context of hearings, hearings and media reports is very important. Maybe the tone was a bit sharper. It might have been dulled a bit. It was part of my role as a public interest advocate.
Do you think they are the only news agency that is state sponsored? By the way, that's your quote, by the way.
I know it's my quote. To finish my thoughts. If I'm confirmed, my opinions as a public interest advocate won't affect how I act as a policymaker.
The American Accountability Foundation was one of the shady actors who joined the anti-Gigi team. There is more to the AAF than meets the eye. They are a completely mysterious dark money group, and Jane Mayer did a great job reporting on them. No one knows where their funding comes from, but their purpose is to ruin Biden's reputation.
They push lesser known nominees until they catch on with conservatives. The baseless accusation that then-Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson had been soft on sex offenders was made by Majorie Taylor Greene. The AAF began selling that story. She is on the front page of BidenNoms.com.
There was a lot of procedural stuff happening inside the Senate chambers while all of this was happening outside. There are a lot of boxes to check for a nominee. The president is the first to make a nomination. The appointment of Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission was one of the progressive nominations that the president moved quickly on. He didn't move on the FCC slot. The propaganda machine had plenty of time to prepare for the confirmation and was prepared to obstruct it.
You have already seen some clips from the Senate Commerce Committee hearing. The committee votes on the nominee at these hearings. A majority of US senators have to vote "yes" to confirm a nominee if they vote yes. The committee failed to advance her nomination to the floor for a vote because of the opposition to her. In January of this year, Biden had to re-instate her, and she had another confirmation hearing in February. You might have thought that the Republicans would come out swinging.
I don't know where to start. Miss Sohn, I'm very disturbed with what you're saying.
If you want to force the hand of the law-making body of the federal government, by doing that which only Congress can do, how is that constitutional?
Sen. Dan Sullivan said "damn". That is a long distance out there. Do you believe most Republicans are racists?
The timing of the settlement stinks.
I don't think you can be objective. I think you have a lot of issues with judgement, because you have conflicts everywhere, and that makes your impartiality very questionable.
Despite all this, the committee voted in favor of her nomination. Even though she was nominated over a year ago, there hasn't been a floor vote to confirm her.
Why didn't the Biden administration push for a floor vote? They didn't say so publicly.
Senator Schumer was asked about this by Makena Kelly.
Makena Kelly wondered what was going on with the model. She should be confirmed.
Sen. Chuck Schumer asked what was happening.
The administration is trying to get the votes for her They are trying to get the votes.
There was some concern that the nomination of Sohn early on would conflict with their efforts to pass the infrastructure bill. I think they were concerned that any controversy surrounding the nomination of a progressive reformer might cause some additional ripples in the effort to get the votes lined up for infrastructure. I don't know if that's true, but from what I can tell, some of the advisers went into the delay with that in mind.
We don't know if passing that flurry of legislation was the priority over Gigi's nomination. There was a rumor that a vote could happen before the Senate went on a break, but now it is November and the elections are just a few days away.
In states where Democrats were vulnerable in the election, the company was active.
Karl told us that the Democrats in red or purple states who are worried about being reelected have been targeted by the opposition. Republicans and big telecom ground things to a halt and there was some help from Democrats.
It is not based on anything close to fact.
I think the telecom industry is feeding on the idea that Sohn is bad for rural America because I have seen a former Democratic senator run a little political action committee. It is nonpartisan. It is bipartisan, but it is a little heavier on the right wing since they have a unified blockade against her nomination. I don't care how far you have to dig, it's not based on anything close to reality.
The thing is here. Both sides of the issue come from the same place.
Right-wing news networks compete with Fox News in order to make cable systems more competive. She worked with the president of One America News Network to get WealthTV onto big cable systems. The merger of Sinclair Broadcast Group with Tribune Media Group was opposed by Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy. Competition concerns are not speech regulations.
Ruddy offered his support toGigi when she was nominated. He told you from the top. Newsmax is a conservative news outlet. We talked to him and here is what he said.
A few years back, I opposed the merger of Sinclair television stations with Tribune, which would've created a massive television network that reached 80% and had control over the market of 80% of US television homes.
It is close to 73 percent.
Chris Ruddy objected to it and she objected to it. I tend to support Democrats who support the issues that I care about.
There has been a lot of commentary about whether or not she supports speech regulations. Competition issues seem to be more important to you. I guess you're worried about her speech or her social media activity.
She has never called for closing down any conservative media that she is aware of.
Chris Ruddy thinks that she has never called for closing down any conservative media. After the election, she suggested that there should be hearings about Fox News. It's okay. I'm pretty sure she said it was Trump TV. Conservatives have called CNN the "Clinton News Network" or "state-run TV" in the past, I remember. Political rhetoric is what it is.
She didn't call for de platforming. When I had the issue after the election, people were calling for Newsmax to be de-platformed, we strongly had to defend ourselves and she was sympathetic, even though she didn't agree with us.
What do you think is behind the opposition toGigi?
Chris Ruddy: She has been a fairly progressive activist, so that makes her an easy target for Fox. She supports net neutrality and has been for a long time. I don't like the idea of the government regulating the internet, but I do think that it should be an open platform, and I like the idea of net neutrality.
We have seen it happen on the internet where Newsmax is being limited by places like Facebook and other places. I am very concerned that a major broadband provider could be blocking access to Newsmax. I think there needs to be protections in place. I'm in favor of a concept that's similar to net neutrality, but it became such a divisive issue.
Conservatives should support it but liberals should back it. It's not the full regulatory concept behind it, but a robust idea that everyone should have access to the internet and it should be a utility.
Fox News is opposed to Sohn. Are they pushing against her because they don't want you to compete with them on cable channels?
Chris Ruddy said that the cable industry is a racket and that the broadcast companies benefit from it. The cable customers are screwed. If you own a lot of television stations that a local cable company needs, they will have you over a barrel if they don't give you your channel.
They put a gun to your head and said they wanted huge fees for the local network affiliates. We want you to pay us for the channels that we want you to put on your channel guide. There should be a requirement at the FCC that big broadcast companies can't force cable operators to put their channels on. It has caused consumer costs to go up, which affects me and everyone else who buys cable. If I am an independent cable operator, I can't get cable carriage because so much of the bandwidth and the channel guide is taken up by all of these conglomerates.
The system has been milked by Fox and they want to keep it going. They reduce the potential of Newsmax.
Everyone is scared of Fox. If you go against them, they'll try to destroy you. A lot of people aren't talking about it.
Everyone is scared of Fox.
Did you speak to anyone in the Biden administration or Senator Schumer about the nomination ofGigi? Did you push for it?
Chris Ruddy wouldn't talk about who he talked to or what agency he talked to. I can tell you that I have spoken to both parties. The FCC commissioner is still supported by us.
Ruddy and Newsmax are still supporting Gigi Sohn, but something strange is happening at their main competitor, OAN.
In December of 2021, Charles Herring released a statement in support of Gigi. Robert Herring reprimanded his son for endorsing her. There are some bits from that broadcast, but I want to set them up for you. An OAN anchor called Gigi an enemy of the First Amendment and then a reporter interviewed Robert Herring. Here is some of the discussion.
One of the most extreme left-wingers in Washington is Sohn. She is a Marxist who does not like free speech or the Constitution. The free press has enemies. What do you think about her nomination? One America News supports Gigi Sohn.
This is the reason I came on. The company is not supporting my son, despite him coming out and supporting her. I had to come out and say that this company wouldn't support her and that I wouldn't allow it to happen. I don't know how my son decided he wanted to do that, but we worked with her and she never did anything for us. There is no way that the company will support her. I don't think she should be near the FCC.
Pearson Sharp: Did you reach out to Fox News to offer your support?
Robert Herring said he did. I apologized to a couple of people that are very high and said that we should never have supported her.
A lot of people are groveling to Fox. Wow.
We talked about who opposed Gigi but why. Why has big telecom gone against Gigi? We were told by David Goodfriend.
Murdoch and Roberts don't want the Senate to confirmGigi. What is that? Their business is what determines it all. Net neutrality is something that they don't like because they don't want the government telling them what to do. They've been campaigning against net neutrality. The strongest rules ever put in place to protect an open internet were put in place by the obama administration. They didn't want to have Sohn confirmed in the Senate.
Murdoch wants to buy more properties, he doesn't like a lot of attention to which broadcast stations he owns, and she thinks there should be limits on the amount of media ownership. Two billionaires are trying to stop a person.
Karl mentioned that telecom wants to prevent the FCC from having an active and engaged commissioner like the FTC had.
There is a real reluctance among these telecom giants. They don't want a reformer who is willing to change things in a big way. They enjoyed a captured FCC for four years under Trump, and now they enjoy an FCC for another two years that basically lacks the voting majority to do anything controversial or anything that the public has demanded. It's corrupt. Ordinary corruption is what we are seeing, but we can call it a lot of things. It is just corruption and gets dressed up as something more complex.
Makena Kelly also repeated this.
You can't restore net neutrality unless there are three Democrats at the FCC.
Makena Kelly said that the most important thing is that Biden has made it clear that he wants to restore net neutrality, and you can't do that unless there's three Democrats at the agency.
When the FCC is unable to take action against big telecom, there are a lot of problems.
The FCC didn't have anything to do with the Biden administration striking a deal with a bunch of telecoms to either lower their lowest broadband plans or make them cheaper so low-income families would have better access to the internet. It was just deals that were struck with these companies that made the program possible. The solution was a private one.
One of the things that struck me about those deals was the fact that immediately after, the rates went up forVerizon. The government gave them money and then they raised their rates for other subscribers. It seems like a functional FCC would be in charge of that, but at two to two, it seems like they can't do much.
AT&T said that they have supported an open internet. We haven't taken a position on Sohn's nomination, we haven't asked any third-party organization to take a position, and we haven't funded any campaigns against her nomination
Big telecom isn't being regulated because the FCC is in a state of disrepair. The FCC has been weakened.
The FCC isn't strong enough to improve internet access in rural and underprivileged areas. During the Pandemic, people depended on reliable internet at home for a lot of things. When the Pandemic hit, the need to close the digital divide became even more important.
The rules for how these companies are going to operate are set by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is involved in a lot of things. We are going to have an internet that has a lot of power over it. Is it going to be a social networking site? Do you think it will be dominated by a few players? Are we going to talk about big open pipes again? That is what the internet promised.
The current chair of the FCC spoke to us about this during the Pandemic.
The digital divide needs a nationwide plan. We need a policy that addresses how we are going to connect all of us and how we are going to make sure it happens.
What will happen to the confirmation of Sohn into the FCC? There are possibilities here. The most likely scenario is that the vote will take place in the last few months of the year, when new senators take office. Simington, Carr, Tate, and Edelstein were confirmed during the last few weeks of the year.
There is a chance that a floor vote onGigi will happen next year.
The third possibility is that the Biden administration gives up and puts forth a new nominee who is more in line with the telecom industry. David Goodfriend offered us a silver lining, even though Karl Bode was worried.
It is a sad commentary on the influence of a few multi-billion dollar companies on our politics and public policy. It's very rare that you see such a diverse coalition on anything right now.
Do you think about it? One of the most conservative news outlets in the US supports her. She is supported by the Communications Workers of America. Thousands and thousands of Americans went out of their way to tell their senators that they supported her. We think she's nice. When did you find an issue like that in Washington? It isn't very common. I think she will be confirmed because she has shown that she has the ability for it.
I don't know what's going to happen withGigi's nomination It is too late to get it done before the mid-terms. There will be no change to net neutrality, no push to close the digital divide, and no emphasis on creating more competition for broadband access if no one is elected to the FCC. There won't be anything.
Americans pay more money for slower broadband than other countries in the world because we have failed to regulate our internet service providers.
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