A coalition of First Amendment watchdogs and organizations have endorsed a letter urging Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr to resign over his comments about ABC’s late night talk show earlier this month.

The letter, sent Tuesday to Carr and the FCC directly, said the chairman’s criticism of the monologue exceeded the scope of his authority because they violated the free speech and expression of ABC and its affiliates under threat of punishment.

The letter was signed by 42 public interest groups, including Free Press, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Public Citizen, Media Justice, the Government Accountability Project, People for the American Way and the Center for Digital Democracy.

The groups content that Carr’s actions were so egregious that merely apologizing for them isn’t enough — he must also resign from office.

During a podcast earlier this month, Carr took issue with a monologue aired on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” two days prior, during which Kimmel wrongly implied that a man accused of assassinating political activist Charlie Kirk was aligned with supporters of President Donald Trump.

Carr encouraged ABC affiliates to pull the program and suggested the FCC might employer a tougher line of regulatory scrutiny against ABC and parent company Disney if the matter wasn’t remedied to his satisfaction. ABC ultimately put the show on hiatus for a week after two broadcasters — Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, Inc. — said they would pull the show from their five dozen ABC affiliated stations.

“As someone who has repeatedly inveighed against the dangers of government censorship and who has specifically defended the importance of political satire, you know exactly how chilling and unconstitutional your statements have been,” the groups said in their letter. “Yet since being made chairman of the FCC by Donald Trump and even before his election last year, you have repeatedly threatened newsrooms and interfered with broadcasters and other media outlets, based on meritless complaints about their journalistic practices and the content these companies produce.”

The groups said Carr should “retract and apologize for your remarks” in order to “mitigate the damage you have caused,” but said an apology isn’t enough to correct his wrongdoing.

“Your constitutional transgression cannot be adequately remedied simply with an apology — you should resign immediately,” the groups said.

Carr has not responded to a request for comment. Last week, the Campaign for Accountability filed a bar complaint against Carr over the same matter.

While many of the groups that signed onto the letter are aligned with progressive views, Carr’s remarks and the subsequent action taken by ABC and some of its affiliates drew strong condemnation from both sides of the aisle.

Some Republican lawmakers and activists expressed concern that Carr’s attempt to censor unfavorable political speech was a slippery slope that might be used to censor conservative media outlets and podcasters in the future.

Speaking on his podcast earlier this month, Senator Ted Cruz characterized Carr’s actions as “dangerous as hell,” and said his demand that ABC affiliates pull the show under threat of regulatory action was Mafia-esque and “right out of Goodfellas.”

Carr’s biggest supporter is Trump himself, who posted on social media that the chairman is a “true American patriot” and “supported by MAGA, like few others.” MAGA refers to people who support Trump and his politics.

Carr acknowledged Trump’s support in a statement on X over the weekend.

“Thanks to your strong leadership, I’m proud to join with so many across the Administration in delivering great results for the American people,” Carr said.

In interviews that followed Nexstar, Sinclair and ABC’s actions, Carr said the situation was being incorrectly spun as one where his comments influenced the decision to put the show on hiatus.

Instead, Carr characterized the matter as one where local broadcasters were making decisions based on the interest and desires of the communities they serve.

But neither Sinclair nor Nexstar allowed stations to decide on their own whether to air the program, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, officials at Nexstar sent its ABC affiliates a list of talking points to give to callers and e-mailers who criticized the company’s decision to pull the show.

Last week, ABC ended its temporary hiatus of Kimmel’s program. The show began taping new episodes on Tuesday, and Sinclair and Nexstar returned the program to their affiliates a few days later.

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Read more:

• Disney needs to move more shows to streaming, analysts say
• Watchdog files bar complaint against FCC Chairman Carr over Kimmel controversy
• ABC pulls “Jimmy Kimmel Live” amid threats from FCC chairman
• Law firm files FCC complaint against TV station over Kimmel monologue
• Trump urges FCC to pull TV station licenses over negative coverage
• Broadcasters who criticized Jimmy Kimmel have deals pending before FCC