Trump’s tweet drags Indian-origin communications chief into spotlight
WASHINGTON:IT’S the most unenviable position in the Trump administration to be: behind a podium with an audience of one, filling up the space till as far as the eyes can see. Aides, and some very close to the President, have failed, faltered and fallen, or flourished. Indian American Ajit Pai finds himself in that spot, now.
Pai is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission hat regulates radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable communications, and may have been put in that spot by President Donald Trump’s call for revoking the license of networks critical of him. Especially NBC, which reported that secretary of state Rex Tillerson, called the president a “moron”.
Trump said nothing publicly to Pai but wrote on Twitter: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
The FCC issues and regulates licenses only to individual TV stations, but Pai is coming under pressure to take a public position on a matter that has been condemned as an attempt to muzzle the press.
“I ask you to commit in writing,” senator Sidney Blumenthal, a Democrat, wrote in a letter to Pai on Monday, “that you will not vote against any broadcast license renewal application in a manner that is inconsistent with the First Amendment (of the American constitution that protects freedom of speech).”
Pai and the four commissioners of the body could face persistent questioning on this issue when they face a congressional panel later this month.
Pai, whose mother is from Bengaluru and father from Hyderabad, is a Republican and, was named a commissioner by President Barack Obama in 2012, and was elevated to the top job by President Trump.
He has not spoken publicly about the position he may find himself in now.