While many conservatives and especially supporters of President Donald Trump were pleased by ABC's indefinite suspension of its "Jimmy Kimmel Live" TV show, Texas Senator Ted Cruz says he's alarmed about the way it all happened.
On his podcast, released Friday, Sen. Cruz told his co-host Michael Knowles that the attitude of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr in complaining about the late night host's actions was straight out of the movie "Goodfellas."
Cruz agrees that getting Kimmel off the air is a good thing. "He was bitter and nasty, and he lied about Charlie Kirk," the Senator said on his show.
But having the head of the FCC come out and threaten broadcasters' licenses went too far, he added, taking exception to Carr's remark, 'We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.'" Cruz called that, "right out of Goodfellas," the famous movie about a portion of the Italian mob.
"That's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, 'nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it.'"
Threatening government power to take a TV show off the air, Cruz added, is "a slippery slope" that could end up in a reverse situation when Democrats take control of the FCC.