Trump agencies turn up heat on culture wars

Government agencies in the Trump 2.0 era are going far beyond their traditional tech and media policy arenas to tackle issues around race, gender, alleged political bias, and collusion. President Trump's push to expand executive branch power is testing the independence of regulatory agencies. The President signed an executive order in February 2025 claiming executive branch authority over what have historically been independent federal agencies. There are currently only three commissioners serving at the Federal Communications Commission. The lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, has condemned chair Brendan Carr's investigations. The FCC has launched several investigations into media and telecommunications 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 Commissioner Gomez said was "flouting the will of Congress." "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.