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During this year’s campaign, Donald Trump disowned Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation agenda that would transform the federal government’s enforcement powers into political weapons while selling off the rest to the highest bidder, by swearing he didn’t know who was behind it. But now that voting is over, he’s finding the plan a handy way to fill positions in his incoming administration.

Carr is ready to punish media companies for coverage he dislikes.

On Sunday, Trump announced he would nominate Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission. Carr, already an FCC commissioner, was the only sitting member of government to author a chapter of Project 2025.

It’s not hard to predict what Carr will do with the FCC, since he wrote it all down. In Project 2025, in posts on X, and in interviews with conservative outlets including Fox News, Carr has laid out a vision for an FCC that would deregulate most broadcasters and telecommunications companies, while cracking down on and intimidating traditional media, growing the reach of conservative media, and unleashing disinformation on social media platforms. The result: An information ecosystem tilted further in Trump’s favor.

It’s a baseline for democracy that people are able to obtain accurate information. And it is a real threat to democracy when the government begins to target and punish the media for publishing disfavored viewpoints. Yet that is precisely what Carr has threatened to do.

In the days before Trump tapped Carr, the FCC commissioner seemed to be auditioning for the body’s top job by attacking NBC for featuring........

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