The chair of the FCC literally threatened them in public. It doesn't matter if "ABC admitted they didn't get pressure" in some attempt to appease Trump. We all got to watch and hear it for ourselves.
>What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
Do you really want to pretend that he is no applying pressure by threatening businesses who broadcast speech he doesn't like?
Kimmel got caught spreading blatant falsehood about who the shooter was. That has always been against the rules for public airwaves.
There's Mr. Kimmel's quote. Where did he lie? He never said what Mr. Robinson's political affiliations are or where.
The important part is: “characterize … as anything other than one of them.”
This structure means:
“to describe (someone) not as belonging to a certain group, but as belonging to some other group instead.”
“Them” here points back to the MAGA gang (mentioned earlier in the sentence).
So, “one of them” = “a member of the MAGA gang.”
Other than” in English means “except” or “different from.”
“Anything other than one of them” = “any possible identity, except being part of MAGA.”
In English, this formula has a special pragmatic force:
Literal meaning: “Describe as any category that is not X.”
Implied meaning: “The truth is probably X, but the speaker is trying to deny it.”
This works because if there weren’t evidence for “X,” there would be no need to deny or redirect away from it.