If there is a change in administration after november 3 . Brendan thank you so much, peter, for having us on. There are five of us. We serve staggered terms. Every year, one member of the commission is up for renomination confirmation by the senate. And that process continues irrespective of the outcome of the election. For instance, my term runs through 2023. And i can hold over for a longer period of time and i will continue to serve regardless of the outcome of the election. Rep. Lee peter and with Michael Orielly not being renominated by the president , if there were a change in the administration, you and sherman pie would be the two chairman pie would be the two republicans, correct . Brendan thats right. Michael orielly has served for a long time. His term expired a year and a half ago. Were allowed to stay on until the end of this congress. When were in this situation, that will push his term will come to an end. Commissioner pye and myself will continue to serve. Peter now to the policies. In an election year, are you able to get things done . Brendan yeah, look, the sec has been incredibly busy. This interview right here goes to part of it. We are all in three different locations right now. Covid19 changed the lives of so Many Americans in so many different ways. Overnight, our lives shifted onto the internet. Whether its for work or educating our kids or accessing telehealth. And we saw a tremendous spike in internet traffic, 25 increase. And so the fcc immediately went into action to make sure that our network continued to perform and importantly, that americans got to stay connected. So, im incredibly proud of the work that the fcc staff did. We took a series of steps to support Internet Connectivity when so Many Americans depended on connectivity more than ever before. And so im really proud of the work our staff has been getting done this year. Peter well, joining us to look at some of those policies is the washington post. Thank you for having me on the show. And commissioner car, just following up on that point about the pandemic, you know were early in the school year and you mentioned the shift of School Online for so many communities who are dealing with the pandemic. I was even reading stories all year about children having to log on in schools in parking lots and are getting left behind because they dont have reliant reliable Internet Access at home. What steps are you taking at the fcc to address that Digital Divide . Brendan yeah, closing the Digital Divide has been a top priority for us and i have to say im really proud of the amount of progress that has been made in the last three years alone. If you look back at the Digital Divide, its narrowed by over 30 in the last three years. We have more miles of highspeed fiber built, over 450,000 miles connecting a recordbreaking homes. Of so, were really lucky in the sense that the pandemic hit after we saw this explosion of Internet Connections being built. Now, to your point, no one is raising a Mission Accomplished flecked at this point. Theres much more work to do. We partnered with internet providers in the last month to launch new or open up existing ones to more eligibility, low income programs to make sure that families with those with schoolage children, have access to the resources that they need. The department of education has a 16 million fund and we worked with them to open up that funding to provide connections to schools so that they dont have kids going to a local wifi spot unnecessarily to get their internet connection. And given the fact that this pandemic is dragging on longer and its looking like some schools may be have students having students logging on from home for at least several more months, do you think that Congress Needs to address these access issues in a potential stimulus package . Brendan im certainly open to congress providing additional funding, particularly if the fcc can help close the Digital Divide. There is an action to bring connectivity up to 10 million americans. That up to now, havent had highspeed services. Were also voting on a 5g fund to open up mobile highspeed services. So, were putting resources to it, but Additional Support from congress to fully get this job done will always be welcome. And i wanted to ask, because you mentioned 5g, just yesterday, we saw apple unveil the new 5g iphones and we saw the verizon ceo talking about how 5g is now a reality. Where should americans expectations be on 5g . Should they buy into that height hearing hype that were right now . Brendan weve really come a long way. If you flash back to 2015, 2016, there were analysts that wrote that while the u. S. Led the world in 4g. They said that there would be a 5g tsunami from china and other countries, making it nearly impossible, in their assessment, for the u. S. To catch up. What weve seen isnt that u. S. Providers have been slow, because the u. S. Government was slowing them down in terms of building out networks. So weve engaged in steps over the past couple years to clear the unnecessary red tape. And the u. S. Is now the strongest 5g platform in the world. And to your point, news of the new iphone coming out with 5g i think is a great indication of how weve come in this country with a 5g network. Theres always a question of the chicken in the egg. Is the network first, is the device first . I think this announcement about the 5g iphone secures in everyones mind that 5g is here and now well have these devices in the hands of millions of americans around the holidays. People are going to be able to see for themselves the impact that 5g can make in their lives. Ill also add that the handset that was the main functionality of a 4g network is going to be the least interesting thing of a 5g network. 5g is much more internet is, virtual reality, augmented reality but do i think the 5g iphone is a significant measure as to where we are with 5g builds. Peter commissioner carr, given the two issues introduced, Digital Divide and 5g, do you consider broadband expansion and these issues to be an infrastructure issue, much like rails and highways . Brendan certainly an infrastructure challenge. At the end of the day, americans want choice and they want competition. But it is an infrastructure bill. Build. Ive spent a lot of time in this job outside of d. C. In Rural Communities meeting with telecom techs that build this infrastructure because it is a build project at the end of the day. Thats why ive led the fccs efforts so that these internet builds can accelerate. And weve seen the results of that. Internet builds our are accelerating in communities across the country. Its a great jobs story, were up to 20,000 jobs that we could add just with tower climbers alone to complete the countrys 5g build. So its right to view this as an Infrastructure Project and we need to make sure that we can drive down the cost of those builds. Peter and if the congress were to introduce an omnibus infrastructure bill, would you want broadband to be included on that . Brendan weve got a lot of Funding Sources were pulling on right now. A 5g fund for mobile, but there s going to need some resources needed to get the job done. What kind of a number would you put on that . How much money does Congress Need to allocate towards these projects . Brendan well, again, if you look at where we are side, weve allocated roughly 20 billion. This first option will give us a lot of information. We set it up where we have 16 billion and providers can bit down from there if they can provide connectivity for less than that. The information that we get from this option will be a significant indicator of the remaining amount of funding we would need. I wanted to switch gears because we are getting so close and a big issue in this election is social Media Companies and how they are monitoring content. We now see President Trump calling for section 230 to be outright revoked and passing executive orders targeting that law. Think this is a seachange in how regulators think about the Tech Industry . I think the debate over big tech is a microcosm for a broader debate taking place within the conservative movement. I think there are some that have embraced abject corporatism, which i think is different from light touch regulation. I think we should bring a light touch approach to regulating big tech, but right now, there is a no touch approach. We have never had a gap between the size, scale, and power of an institution like big tech in the absence or near absence of regulation. Just look at internet providers. At the fcc, we do not have a complete hands on approach with internet providers. We have a transparency rule. I call for bringing that same type of light touch regulation to big tech, including application of a transparency rule and getting back to the original intent with section 230. I think courts have given that an expansive reading and Justice Thomas weighed in with a similar view about courts going beyond the limited protection 230 affords big tech. I think a light touch approach is right for big tech, but the no touch approach is not in the best interest of americans. When you talk about the section 230,nt of what are you referring to . Section 230 is a number of provisions and one of them talks about not treating an internet platform like the speaker of a content that was provided. Justice taunus walkthrough it , does not give them immunity of treatment as a distributor. If they know about illegal content that may necessitate , taking action, but we have into liabilityd of but also liability as a 230, distributor of content. There is a more limited view of 230 based on what we have seen from courts. Speaking about that dynamic where you have the court interpreting it in other way, do you think it should be the role of the fcc to redefine the scope of 230 or does that go to congress or the Supreme Court now that we hear justice taunus weighing in. Has thethink congress authority over 230 and i think they should. If you look to the case law, we have authority with respect to the provisions and the communications act. Orther it is a rulemaking ruling i think we should look forward and look at the terms of section 230 and provide Additional Guidance about what those terms mean. Executive order earlier this year opened a comment sectionith looking at 230. We are those efforts stand and you can see the agency making any changes to section 230 before the end of 2020 . We are running the normal course process when we get a petition like that. Fcc put it out for public comments. I was surprised at how robust and for the record was a response to the petition, and now the fcc is reviewing comments that were filed and the fcc chairman ultimately will decide when and if we move forward. We are still running our normal course with respect to that petition and i do not know when we move forward in terms of timing. 26 words that created the internet, no provider or user of an Interactive Computer Service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. How would you alter that . One idea laid out in a petition filed at the fcc pursuant to the executive order was this idea that you have not just that provision. There are other sections of section 230 that talk about Good Samaritan protection. If you are going to engage in a takedown of content, you have to basis thatgood faith will specify broad criteria. I think one step we have been asked to do is to clarify when that other fortune applies. One idea is the language you apply should apply when a provider takes no action in response to a post going on the internet but if a platform is going to take it down content, that the court should look more closely at that separate provision that imposes a higher bar on when you can take down content. Take down content with 230 projections. Wascommission found fcc very clear that if a platform whats your take content down, it can. The question before us is whether it can take a doubt not just with First Amendment rights but the boats protections of section 230, protections a lot of other political actors do not get to benefit from. A lot of the president s attacks on 230 and in his executive order key best addressing this came right after the Tech Companies took action posts onte tweets or their services, particularly twitters decision to label some of the president s tweets that they say violate its policies. Some democrats at the president s critics see these actions as the president trying to [indiscernible] in an election year. What is your response . We see this a lot in debates in washington, d. C. , not just text policy and the idea is if the president speaks about it there is a lot of opposition to it. Meritsthis issue on its and there is bipartisan support for performing section 230. There are bills in congress by democrats, republicans, bipartisan bills. The fact that President Trump has advocated for section 230 reform is meaningful to a lot of people out there. Beyond anyhould move particular individual on this and look at the core merits of the issue. You have seen it from Justice Thomas to freestate foundation who have come out in favor of section 230 reform. In addition to the bipartisan movement we see. The days of maintaining the status quo with respect to big tech whether it is 230 or broader scrutiny appeared to be coming to an end. I think that is a good thing. To comment onike whether section 230 hertz michaelhurts orielly . I had no communications with the white house about that and would defer to them to articulate their position. Sorry for interrupting. [indiscernible] just a followup on that. Congress tolled for fccirm nomination to the. Do you think congress should confer him . President on the nominating symington and congress to confirm. I think symington would be a great addition to the fcc team. He has got a lot of private and Public Sector experience and telecom. Ive enjoyed getting to know him since his nomination was announced by the president but defer to the president and senate on that issue. Thank you for correcting me on the name. While we are talking about the senate, we have a big hearing coming up with the ceo of several major social Media Companies right before the election. If you were a lawmaker in congress, what questions would you have for those social media ceos . The debate about social media as shifted substantially in the last six or seven months. It used to be people would say there is no bias being exercised by these companies. Note market power they are applying, and i think the conversation as shifted, particularly around bias, less about a defense about them not being biased to a statement about them being allowed to be biased because they are private platforms. At the debate then becomes, can they engage in this bys conduct within the Media Section 230 or as content moderation and other practices far outstripped the type of Comment Congress had in mind when it passed that provision. I think additional scrutiny is needed. We have never had an institution in history that has as much power as big tech. I think he was seeing pushback from the right and from the left. A lot of leftleaning ideas for solutions are not what i adores. They want to break up big tech, ban all mergers. I have put forward a plan that would bring accountability, transparency, and user empowerment. Necessary parta of that effort but not a sufficient part. We need the federal trade commission to provide closer scrutiny to practices here and antitrust authorities have the tools to regulate the sectors like tech. A lot of tools we have were designed for slowmoving monopolies like railroads and industries. Im not thinking of a rethink of the Consumer Trust dated but we need to make sure the antitrust authorities have the tools to see how quickly things change in tech. In 2011,e the tools 2012 to see how quickly its a ram could have scaled to be a competitor to facebook. Maybe we still would have approved that. I am not sure that we have the tools to see where that was going. We need some robust tools there. Perhaps this is a theoretical argument. When you look at social media sites and cable and broadcast, all are treated differently in the regulatory market, but they are all the same service, arent they . Is there an argument to be made there should be more coordination in how they are treated . That goes to the point when you talk about all these different mediums and political actors at the end of the day, we singled out the largest institutions in history for section 230 that i think go beyond the actual words of that law. I think all of that underscores the need for a rethink. But there is a broader competition that we are seeing. If you step back from some of the entities that you talked about, right now we are seeing increased competition from fixed providers,cable competition from mobile 5g providers, competition from new orbit satellites. That competition at the end of the day is going to be for extending Internet Access and driving down costs. The House Democrats recently released a report from their findings into antitrust investigations into the Tech Companies. It sounds like you are talking about the need for greater enforcement of existing antitrust laws. Were there any recommendations from this report that you agreed with . I have not had a chance to read through the report, but i welcome the additional scrutiny that is going on right now. From my seat we recently , reviewed a transaction spring sprint and tmobile. In some ways, this was the other side of the same coin. A lot of people look at sprint as the number four carrier in the u. S. It would continue to be the fourth competitor, but if you really understood where sprint was, the understanding of the dynamics of the market, you could see clearly sprint was dead men walking and combining sprint and tmobile would bring much stronger competition to at t and verizon. We are seeing that right now with the accelerated builds that tmobile is engaging in and the markets. Do we have the tools to see where this fastpaced sector is going whether it is sprint tmobile or facebook instagram. I welcome any antitrust rules that would allow people to get a clearer picture of where the market is going. One of the issues the fcc has been dealing with is the installation of new 5g towers. Workingthe status of with localities on that issue . I think this has been one of the unheralded Success Stories on the last three years. At the beginning of 2017, we were at serious risk of falling behind china and global competitors. Tookst cost too much and too long. We modernize our Wireless Infrastructure rules to support 5g. We updated the federal and environmental reservation roles preservation rules that did not make sense for 5g builds. We built on common sense rules that governments put in place, put in guardrails so that we do not have long timelines that make it ok to build 5g in new york or san francisco. We engage in a five or six different reforms and today, 5g is alive in south dakota. I think those are much better measures as to where we are as a country today. Pentagon put out a request for proposals related to spectrum for 5g and it is causing\from the wireless industry. Do you have any comments . Rfi ther as the pentagon put out, there was discussion. There was a deity official that said it was not clear whether they were moving forward and an official indicated that they were more contemplating 5g uses for their own internal uses and they were not looking to create a competitive or commercial 5g offering. I think that makes a lot of sense. There are some that have pushed for a nationalization of 5g. I have laid out why that is a mistake. If you are looking at old data, maybe you can make an argument there about the need to take drastic steps. If you look at where we are, current data, 5g is now live nationwide, and we have accomplished that not by mimicking the approach of china but by by getting the u. S. Government out of the way, and that is the successful model that we should continue to go down. In two or three minutes that are left, i want to ask you a question and i will let cap a close with a closing question. I want to take you back a few years. One of the former commissioner a , democrat highlighted the issue of prison phone rates. Has anything been done about that since she left the commission . Her longtime advocacy on this issue, we actually recently took a vote to address these issues and chairman pie has been state regulators for issues outside of the fcc and we have seen additional action at the state level. I think it is great. The other thing she really let on at the fcc was telehealth. A new telehealth initiative, and as covid hit, we were able to use that procedural vehicle for a covid19 telehealth program. I have now traveled to ohio, michigan, florida to meet with some of the beneficiaries of that program. 30y were able to see a 20 to fold increase. We were able to meet that demand due to the funding in support of the fcc provided. Final question. Obviously, the election is at the top of mind for Many Americans heading into the pool. Polls. [indiscernible] think a trump second term would differ from a biden presidency when it comes to regulating this industry . I can focus on my priorities whether the majority or minority. West and foremost, i think need to take action to rain and big tech. At that mean section 230 performed. We need to continue to build out infrastructure, give the private sector incentives. We have seen internet speeds double. We would need to continue to build on that momentum and make sure the private sector continues to bridge the Digital Divide. Brendan carr is one of the three republican commissioners on the federal communications commission. We appreciate you both being on the communicators. Thanks. Thank you. You are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government created bike americas Television Company cable Television Company as a Public Service and brought you today by your television provider. Eastern, 9 00 p. M. Political commentator Candace Owens on why black americans should vote republican in her book blackout. She is interviewed by the chairman of the american conservative union. Question 25 of africanamericans call themselves conservatives. Is that shocking or is that the story you are trying to get out there . I know it to be true. Show me a black american, i will show you someone who is conservative and does not know it this is one thing republicans are really bad is getting out their message and this is what i have tried to be different about enjoying the conservative movement. You have to realize what the left one as the culture war. They were doing things on tv, being funnier. Watch book tv this weekend on cspan two. At the competition is on. Be a part of this years student can petition. In middle and High School Students be the start of a National Conversation by making documentaryute exploring the issues with the president and congress to address and 2021. Be bold with your documentary. Show differing points of view and include cspan video. There are 100,000 and total cash prizes, including the grand prize of 5,000. At the deadline to submit video is january 20, 2021. You will find competition rules, tips, and more information on how to get started at our website. Entcam. Org. With the Senate Confirmation hearings for judge Amy Coney Barrett concluded, whats the next steps in the confirmation process starting thursday live at the neglect a. M. Eastern, the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Votes on judge merricks nomination and then friday at 10 00 eastern, the full Senate Begins debate on Amy Coney Barretts confirmation. Watch live on cspan and cspan2, stream at cspan. Org or listen live on the cspan radio app. Representative barbara lee gave the weekly democratic address. Californias 13th congressional district, which covers oakland and berkeley. She talked about disparities in the federal coronavirus response. Hello, i am congresswoman barbara lee. I am privileged to represent californias 13th congressional district, which includes oakland at the east bay area. I serve on the Appropriation Committee and the hoe