Trump agencies turn up heat on culture wars

Zoom out: Trump signed an executive order in February claiming executive branch authority over what have historically been independent federal agencies.

• Shortly after, he fired the FTC's the two Democratic commissioners. (They later sued the administration over the move and the litigation is ongoing.)
• There are currently only three commissioners serving at the FCC. The lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, has condemned chair Brendan Carr's investigations.

Here's a look at the state of play:

FTC: The agency has alleged that some companies have banded together to block ads based on their political content, and recently approved the Omnicom-Interpublic merger with a restriction on ad boycotts.

• The FTC also held a workshop last week on "Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices in 'Gender-Affirming Care' for Minors," a new line of inquiry for the FTC, which generally wades into health care only to examine marketing claims about products or treatments.
• That workshop drew pushback from consumer and LGBTQ+ groups, which said it showed "a willingness to exploit the agency's consumer protection mandate."

FCC: The FCC has launched several investigations into media and telecom companies over their diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

• The FCC also recently decided to postpone enforcing a bipartisan law that made it more affordable to place calls from prisons and jails, which Gomez said was "flouting the will of Congress."

DOJ: The department has also waded into gender-affirming care, sending subpoenas to 20 physicians and clinics that provide trans care to minors, looking for health care fraud and false statements.

• On the media side, the DOJ filed a statement of interest in a case where major media companies are accused of colluding with each other in an attempt to suppress alternate viewpoints on COVID-19.

Reality check: "In addition to reading the statutes broadly, the Administration is also simply refusing to enforce certain statutes and/or spend appropriated funds," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor at Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

• Schwartzman cited the Commerce Department refusing to release previously-awarded grants under the Digital Equity Act: "On its face, this should be impermissible, but we will have to see what the courts are going to do about this," he added.

The big picture: The agencies' efforts to target companies over social issues are largely working.

• CBS parent Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle with Trump over a defamation lawsuit that legal experts say it could've won in court.

• Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Gannett and a slew of major media companies have all announced rollbacks of their DEI policies to mirror the administration's new mandate.
• The FCC last week approved two T-Mobile acquisitions after the telecom giant dropped its DEI programs.

What they're saying: Conservatives argue the agencies are well within their legal limits and jurisdictions to wade into such social issues like DEI and transgender medical care.

• Leaders of these agencies have been tying the issues to subjects in their remit, like discrimination and consumer protection laws, and saying there's no difference from past proceedings as they carry out Trump's mandates.
• "Thanks to President Trump's leadership, corporations are ending their discriminatory DEI policies," Carr said in a statement to Axios. "I am pleased to see that many of the businesses the FCC regulates are among them."
• "Many of the panelists who appeared say they were victims of mutilation and abuse, and I don't know who is on the other side of that," Joe Simonson, FTC director of public affairs, said in a statement in response to critics of the agency's workshop.

The other side: "It's the MAGA-fication of these agencies, replacing consumer protection with cultural crusades," said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of the Chamber of Progress, a center-left tech industry policy coalition.

• "They would rather throw red meat to Newsmax than combat fraud, protect consumers' privacy, or get more Americans online."