trump, fcc, media, first amendment

The president threatened to strip broadcast licenses because two networks refused to air his speech.

"Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses."

— President Donald Trump, July 16, 2026

When ABC and NBC declined to broadcast Trump's 25-minute primetime address on election security, the president did what no previous president had done from the Oval Office: he accused the networks of participating in a "plot" and called for their broadcast licenses to be revoked.

The speech itself was a rehash of long-running claims about foreign interference and voter file tampering. Trump used it to declassify documents alleging China had illegally accessed millions of American voter records during the 2018 and 2020 elections. CNN, ABC, and NBC all opted against live coverage. CBS, MS NOW, and Fox News aired at least portions of the address. NBC and ABC carried Trump's remarks on their streaming platforms instead, and both networks provided follow-up coverage of his statements afterward.

That was enough to trigger a constitutional confrontation that legal scholars say has no historical precedent.

The threat carries more weight this time than it did during Trump's first term. Back then, FCC leadership disavowed any notion that the commission would weaponize license renewals against networks that displeased the president. Today, FCC Chair Brendan Carr has already initiated early reviews of ABC's eight network-owned TV stations, years before their 2028 renewal deadline. He has also opened investigations into NBC parent company Comcast over its diversity practices and relationships with TV station owners.

Carr made it clear he was paying attention to Trump's Thursday night speech. Before the address began, he posted "News incoming" on X with television and eyeball emojis. He retweeted the White House livestream during the broadcast.

Translation: the gap between the president's threats and actual regulatory action has closed to almost nothing.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, appointed by Joe Biden and the commission's sole Democratic member, issued the sharpest public rebuke. She called Trump's demand "ridiculous" and said the FCC "has no authority to punish a station for refusing to air a blatantly political speech."

"This is a naked attempt to bully broadcasters, and the FCC should have no part in it," Gomez said in a statement. She posted screenshots on X showing that networks had previously declined to air primetime speeches from Biden and Barack Obama under similar circumstances.

The First Amendment community moved quickly. Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and a former top FCC attorney, said the president's demand had no basis in law. "We've never in this country had a law that permits a royal decree for news coverage," he told POLITICO. "If you expressly link a licensing proceeding to whether or not the networks are airing coverage that the president wants covered, then whatever legitimacy that those proceedings might have had is automatically diminished."

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a veteran public interest lawyer, went further: "The obvious legal and constitutional questions that are raised if Brendan Carr does something because the president said so in a public speech raise all sorts of First Amendment issues about viewpoint discrimination that would be insanely impossible to surmount."

The mechanism for carrying out Trump's threat is narrow but real. The FCC does not license national networks directly. It licenses individual local stations, which are then affiliated with networks. ABC and NBC each own dozens of licensed TV stations across the country. If the FCC were to deny the renewal of even a handful of those stations, the economic and operational impact on the parent networks could be devastating.

Carr has already demonstrated willingness to use this leverage. In April, he ordered Disney-owned ABC to file license renewals for its eight TV stations by late May, more than two years ahead of schedule. The order cited possible violations of the Communications Act and the FCC's prohibition on unlawful discrimination. Disney responded that it was "confident" its record demonstrated continued qualifications under the Act and the First Amendment.

Separately, the FCC has been investigating ABC's "The View" since February, claiming the daytime talk show violated equal-time rules when it interviewed a Democratic Senate candidate. ABC has argued the program qualifies as a "bona fide news program" exempt from those requirements, citing a 2002 FCC precedent. In a July 6 legal filing, ABC accused the FCC of "chilling speech ahead of the fast-approaching 2026 general election."

More than 50,000 public comments had been filed on the "The View" matter by late June, after ABC launched an on-air campaign urging viewers to push back against FCC pressure.

The broader context matters. Carr has repeatedly broken from decades of FCC tradition by disavowing the idea that the commission is an independent agency insulated from White House direction. A Supreme Court ruling last month upheld Trump's authority to fire leaders of so-called independent agencies, a decision many observers believe will erode their independence across the board.

Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's chief strategist during his first term, told listeners on his podcast that Carr should pull ABC's licenses immediately. "Pull it," he said. "Let's see what tough guys they are when you do that."

Rep. Doris Matsui, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce telecom subcommittee, urged Carr to publicly reject the president's threats. "Given Chairman Carr's record of entertaining politically motivated complaints against broadcasters, President Trump's threats to revoke broadcast licenses must be taken seriously and rejected," she said.

ABC will have until August 5 to respond to recent conservative petitions calling for its licenses to be denied. Carr must then decide whether to escalate the matter to an administrative hearing.

The late-night television feud provides additional texture to what is effectively a pressure campaign. Stephen Colbert accused CBS of blocking his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico out of fear of triggering the FCC's equal-time rule. CBS denied this, saying the show simply chose YouTube over broadcast to avoid the legal complication. Colbert responded: "I wish we could have put the interview on the show, where no one would have watched it."

Jimmy Kimmel was suspended "indefinitely" by ABC last September after mocking Trump's response to Charlie Kirk's assassination. Trump celebrated the suspension, then criticized ABC when Kimmel returned six days later. More recently, both Trump and First Lady Melania called for Kimmel to be fired over a skit about the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

The pattern is deliberate. Each incident adds another thread to a tapestry of pressure on broadcast media that relies on FCC-licensed spectrum.

Stuart Benjamin, co-director of the Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law School, expressed confidence that courts would reject any attempt to tie license proceedings to editorial decisions. "I would think the documents will go in as lawyerly a direction as he can, even though we'll all know the real source of this," he said. "And I think that a judge who reviews it won't have much doubt about that."

The networks are in a bind regardless. Air Trump's speeches and potentially amplify false claims about elections. Do not air them and face the threat of losing the federal permission to broadcast. Neither option is clean.

What was once a rhetorical flourish has become an active regulatory campaign. The question is no longer whether the FCC can be weaponized against the press. The question is how much damage gets done before the courts finally step in.