During a White House meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a reporter asked former President Donald Trump about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Trump did not like the question at all. He became angry and attacked ABC for bringing it up.
He told reporters that ABC should lose its broadcasting licenses. He also said that FCC Chair Brendan Carr should look into taking the licenses away. Trump has made similar threats in the past whenever he feels a news outlet is treating him unfairly. None of those attempts have actually worked.
According to Reuters, Trump said ABC’s license should be taken because he thinks their news is fake and wrong. He said Carr should deal with it. Carr had just spent time with Trump in Florida a few days earlier.
This is not the first time Trump has aimed his anger at ABC. Last September he tried to get Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Kimmel had made comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk that upset Trump. At that time Trump also said networks should lose their licenses.
Trump has targeted other networks too. He has attacked NBC many times. He has said NBC should pay money for using public airwaves. He even said that NBC should fire Seth Meyers because he did not like the jokes Meyers made about him. Trump has a long pattern of going after the press when he disagrees with their coverage.
But the FCC does not actually give licenses to big networks. It gives them to local TV stations. These licenses last eight years. The FCC is supposed to work independently and not bend to political pressure. It can take away a license only if a station goes against the public interest. This almost never happens. A license has not been taken away in more than forty years.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez strongly disagreed with Trump’s comments. She said the FCC cannot judge whether news coverage makes people in power happy. She explained that the agency cannot punish stations for reporting something leaders do not like. She said Trump’s threats sounded serious but had no real force behind them.
In 2017 Trump made a similar request about NBC. His own FCC chair Ajit Pai said no. Pai explained that the FCC does not have the power to take away licenses based on news coverage. This shows that news outlets have strong legal protections even when a president is angry about what they report.