Trump Meets With FCC's Pai

President-elect Donald Trump met Jan. 16 with FCC senior Republican commissioner Ajit Pai, according to transition and future White House spokesman Sean Spicer, who said it was the President-elect's last meeting of the day Monday. 

Pai is widely expected to be tapped as interim FCC chair when President-elect Trump becomes President Trump on Jan. 20 and could be named permanent chair as well, though his fellow Republican commissioner Michael O'Rielly is also in the conversation. 

Trump also met with former Federal Trade Commission Republican member Joshua Wright. Democratic chair Edith Ramirez announced last week that she was going to be exiting the commission early next month. In the interim, the current single Republican member, Maureen Ohlhausen, will almost certainly be named interim chair, though she will be briefly in the minority until Ramirez exits what is currently a three-person commission.

B&C reported over the weekend that the Trump team has embraced an FCC deregulatory plan that squares, generally, with the philosophies of both Pai and O'Rielly.

Pai's office declined to comment on the meeting.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.