Chairman of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), made clear on Friday that he had threatened executives at DirecTV and AT&T to put Newsmax back on their line-up, “or else.”
Comer spoke about the issue on Newsmax with host John Bachman. “I’m very concerned. I’m very upset that DirecTV does not have Newsmax on there. I’ve been in constant communication with the leadership at AT&T and DirecTV. I have strongly encouraged them to meet with your CEO, Mr. Ruddy, to get this worked out or else!” Comer said, adding:
So I think if anyone has ever watched the House Oversight Committee, any of our first three hearing, they have to ask themselves, do you really want to go in front of the House Oversight Committee? Because this is something that the 26 Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are very passionate about. We’re all huge fans of Newsmax. We don’t like to see Newsmax not being offered on DirecTV, especially considering Newsmax is the, I think, the fourth highest-rated news show on TV now.
And they have dozens of other new shows that have much lower ratings than Newsmax. So I’m doing everything in my ability to see that this gets worked out. If it does, then I would expect the Republican majority to begin to take steps to take action in this. Again, this is private companies. We don’t want to see this happen.
“But they started it, congressman, they started it,” declared Bachman, brushing off any concern about government overreach.
Bachman then claimed the Democrats and Silicon value started the fight by “telling these platforms to get rid of us and Oann and Fox News even.”
“Also, is there a deadline for this for this meeting, this ultimatum?” Bachman asked.
“We go back next week. I’m going to be meeting with some more leaders from DirecTV. They know that I won’t answer. So. And again, our committee is chomping at the bit to get them in front of the committee. We want this resolved and hopefully, we’ll see something in the next few days,” Comer replied.
As the interview ended, Bachman noted, “And we appreciate the support from everyone in Congress. I know you guys love us, but we know you love the First Amendment just a little bit more.”
Notably, DirecTV has repeatedly insisted Newsmax was removed from its programming due to the right-wing network demanding a rate increase, which was not economically viable for the provider.
“On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base,” DirecTV said in a statement at the time.
Newsmax was replaced on DirecTV with the right-wing commentary network The First, which features Bill O’Reilly.
Watch the full clip above via Newsmax
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