President Donald Trump returned to a familiar target on Sunday night, launching a series of Truth Social posts demanding that ABC and NBC lose their broadcast licenses over what he called biased news coverage. The president claimed the networks give him negative coverage 97% of the time despite what he described as his successful presidency.
Trump posted two separate messages attacking the networks late Sunday. In his first post, he wrote that ABC and NBC are “simply an arm of the Democrat Party” and should have their licenses revoked by the FCC. He said he would be “totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy.”
In his second post, Trump escalated his demands by questioning “why is it that ABC and NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the World, aren’t paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES.” He added that they should lose their licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime.” Trump concluded by saying that “Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated.”
Legal experts say FCC has limited power over news content
The Federal Communications Commission’s authority over news content is actually quite narrow under current law. The Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to present a range of viewpoints, was abandoned in 1987. According to the FCC website, “The agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”
This is not the first time Trump has made such threats against broadcast networks. During his first term, when he suggested that NBC lose its license, Ajit Pai, who Trump selected as his FCC chair, pushed back. Pai said that the agency “under the law does not have the authority to revoke the license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.” The FCC licenses individual stations, not networks themselves.
The current regulatory environment has changed since Trump returned to office. Brendan Carr, who Trump appointed to serve as FCC chair this term, has revived complaints against broadcasters over their content. Carr has been connected to the controversial Project 2025 initiative and has taken an aggressive stance toward media companies. When the FCC approved the Skydance-Paramount merger, Carr championed the company’s commitments to “ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.”
The idea of charging broadcasters for spectrum use is not entirely new. Last year, Elon Musk posted on X that “the legacy broadcast networks are using public spectrum, but act as an extension of the Democratic Party. No more free lunch for them.” Trump’s latest attacks come as his administration has been taking various actions that critics say are attempts to control news coverage, including questioning tourists at US borders about their social media posts critical of the administration.
Published: Aug 25, 2025 12:51 pm