Brendan Thomas Carr is an American lawyer who has served as the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since 2025. Carr has been a commissioner of the FCC since 2017. Carr studied government at Georgetown University and graduated from the Columbus School of Law in 2005. He worked in private practice before joining the FCC in 2012 as an attorney and becoming an advisor to Commissioner Ajit Pai in 2014. After Pai became the commission's chair in January 2017, Carr was appointed its general counsel.
In June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Carr to serve as a commissioner of the FCC. As commissioner, Carr initially focused on networks, although he began criticizing social media companies and China over perceived authoritarian policies later in his first term. He was involved in Project 2025 and wrote a section of The Heritage Foundation's Mandate for Leadership (2023).
In November 2024, president-elect Trump named Carr as his chair of the FCC. He took office following Trump's second inauguration. As chair, Carr has voiced support for punishing broadcasters over alleged anti-conservative biases, and he has received criticism for encouraging or coercing broadcast television companies to cancel programs that he says violate their commitments to public-interest programming.
