Six Republican Attorneys General Warn DirecTV to Keep Airing OAN or… They’ll Be Really Mad

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking a while away from inflicting inconceivable suffering on trans kids and allegedly defrauding investors to warn DirecTV: convey again your Trumpiest channel… or he’ll be actually mad… or one thing.

Paxton, who has by no means been one to move up a possibility to debase his official place to pursue the Republican grievance of the week, has joined along with his GOP colleagues in 5 different states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana and South Carolina) to pen a letter warning of penalties if the contract between DirecTV and the MAGA propaganda community One America News (OAN) isn’t renewed.

In January, the AT&T-owned satellite tv for pc TV supplier announced its intent to drop OAN from its roster on the finish of the present contract—successfully slicing the Donald Trump-obsessed channel off from its solely main distributor and sole dependable income. DirecTV had been compelled to hold the community as a part of a settlement agreement. OAN’s content material consisted of a weird mixture of fascist calls to violence, conspiracy theories, and sheer cringe, so it’s not stunning that DirecTV determined to do some cord-cutting of its personal.

Terrible penalties. Dire ones that might shake even probably the most resolute of company giants. Consequences like they’ll be actually mad and uhh… one thing one thing… boycott.

In the letter to DirecTV Bill Morrow, Paxton and the opposite AGs wrote that DirecTV’s resolution was “highly troubling and disappointing” and “masking what is obviously viewpoint discrimination with neutral corporate-speak.” They “strongly recommend” that the cable supplier maintain the channel in its accessible bundles. The AGs went on to argue that DirecTV’s clarification that their resolution to drop OAN was based mostly “routine internal review” is definitely simply cowl for “powerful leftwing voices” demanding company censorship:

Obviously, these inflammatory accusations in opposition to OAN are ridiculous. And even when they weren’t—that’s, even when OAN had been extra precisely construed as merely representing a unique perspective from the legacy media’s liberal orthodoxies—that’s exactly what your majority proprietor AT&T wished when it signed OAN: viewpoint variety. Those values seem to have modified dramatically in late 2020 when the legacy media determined Joe Biden was the subsequent president.

Why, precisely, are six Republican AGs spending their time, and thus taxpaer greenback, writing this letter? Despite the truth that Paxton usually threatens to “investigate” whichever firm or particular person occurs to be the goal of any given week’s Fox News outrage, the letter is curiously devoid of any promise of official retribution. Instead, the AGs wrote that perhaps there might be a spontaneous AT&T boycott from Trump supporters:

Your failure to take action won’t solely trigger you to lose hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in enterprise, but in addition drive many hundreds of thousands of Americans to easily cancel your companies outright, as President Trump and different main figures have already known as for.

Perhaps it’s because there is no such thing as a precise authorized foundation through which the Republican attorneys basic may situation a reputable risk.

OAN’s contract with DirecTV expires in April, and there’s no indication a meaningless letter from Paxton can have any extra affect than OAN host Dan Ball’s pleas for loyal viewers to dig up blackmail material on AT&T chairman William Kennard. Perhaps they’ll persuade a number of guys sporting sun shades indoors to smash their AT&T cable packing containers, however that might require they miss a number of soccer video games, so most likely not.

When he’s not penning meaningless letters to satellite tv for pc TV suppliers, Paxton spends his time deputizing Texas baby protecting companies to terrorize the families of trans children who obtain therapy for gender dysphoria, attempting to ban abortion, being investigated by the FBI for allegedly abusing his workplace and accepting bribes. He can also be nonetheless going through legal fees of securities fraud he was first arrested for in 2015.

DirecTV didn’t reply to Gizmodo’s request for touch upon this story, however we’ll replace if we hear again.