U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to Brendan Carr, his intended pick for Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as he attends a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024 . Brandon Bell/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Late night host Jimmy Kimmel is returning to his ABC show tonight, despite threats from Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr last week to revoke broadcast licenses of ABC stations that aired his program.

Now, former prosecutor Ankush Khardori is arguing that Carr significantly overplayed his hand after Kimmel was reinstated. And he added that he may have a massive hole to dig himself out of to restore his own credibility.

During a Tuesday segment on MSNBC's "The Weeknight," co-host Michael Steele asked Khardori whether a future Democratic-controlled Congress may take action to rein in the FCC after Carr's threats. But the ex-DOJ official said that whether Congress puts "the guardrails back on" may be the wrong question.

"On the question of corruption, it's a very interesting one, how to think about this ... the corporations would not be acting the way they are acting if they did not believe that this government is making decisions not based on the law or the regulations or the merits, but based on political outrage or partisanship," he said.

"That's the reason they have to be making concessions on totally unrelated things, like there's a corporate logic to it, but that corporate logic assumes that the government is itself corrupt on these issues ... and that there's nothing they can do about," he continued. "That's why they self-censor. That's why they acquiesce and bend the knee, because they don't think that the law and the truth is on their side."

Khardori further observed that because Disney nonetheless made the decision to buck the administration and put Kimmel's show back on the air in spite of the FCC chairman's threats, Carr may be pondering his future — or could end up doubling down.

"I think Brendan Carr knows he made a fool out of himself in front of every lawyer in America. I don't think he expected that clip on Benny Johnson to travel the way it did, but we all saw it and we all saw him do it," he said. "... I don't know who Brendan Carr thinks he is. But what what came out of that was universal condemnation from every competent lawyer, including Ted Cruz ... He knows that it has gone way further than he expected it to."

Watch the segment below:

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