On the Friday episode of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator issued a strong rebuke of Carr's approach, despite expressing personal fondness for him and delight over Kimmel's suspension.
Cruz played clips of Carr's interview and called the rhetoric "dangerous as hell," likening it directly to mob tactics from the film Goodfellas. He paraphrased Carr's warning as a mafioso entering a bar and saying, "Nice bar you have here—it'd be a shame if something happened to it."
Cruz emphasized that while he "hates what Jimmy Kimmel said" and is "thrilled that he was fired," using government power to censor media sets a perilous precedent.
Money coming from the left-wing financiers of the Democrat Party has funded radical organizations.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 19, 2025
That’s why I’ve introduced the Stop FUNDERs Act.
We break this down on Verdict: https://t.co/nHEKRnNBl2 pic.twitter.com/jpKprcy4cY
"I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, ‘We’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying,’" he said. He warned that Democrats could weaponize such tactics against conservatives in the future, stating, "They will silence us... They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly."
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation—which oversees the FCC—Cruz's comments carry significant weight and mark one of the most prominent conservative criticisms of the move.