After clash with ABC reporter, Trump pushes FCC to strip licenses

WASHINGTON, D.C.: A brief exchange with a reporter has prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to renew his calls for federal regulators to strip broadcast licenses from ABC affiliates, escalating his long-running campaign against media outlets he says treat him unfairly. During an Oval Office appearance with the Saudi crown prince this week, an ABC News reporter asked Trump about the Jeffrey Epstein political scandal. Trump bristled at the question, responding, "I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake and it's so wrong." The remark is Trump's latest attempt to pressure the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) into punishing a broadcaster he frequently criticizes, though such efforts have so far yielded little tangible action. He praised FCC Chair Brendan Carr, whom he appointed in January, and urged him to "look at that." Carr met with Trump in Florida over the weekend, according to a social media post. The confrontation marks the second time in recent months that ABC has drawn Trump's public ire. In September, Trump applauded Carr after he pressured stations to pull ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air over comments Kimmel made regarding the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. At the time, Trump again floated the idea of stripping broadcast licenses. Trump has repeatedly called on the FCC to revoke licenses held by affiliates of ABC and Comcast-owned NBC, and to charge them for using public airwaves. The FCC, however, is an independent agency with narrow authority. It grants licenses to individual broadcast stations, not networks, for eight-year terms. Although the FCC can revoke a license under a public-interest standard, it has not exercised that power in more than 40 years. Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez pushed back forcefully on Trump's latest comments. "The FCC doesn't get to decide whether the news coverage of those in power is acceptable," she said. "It has neither the legal authority nor the constitutional right to pursue broadcasters for their journalism. These threats sound ominous, but they're empty." Trump has also recently targeted other media figures. Earlier this month, he called on NBC to fire late-night host Seth Meyers after criticizing Meyers' satirical monologue. In July, the FCC approved a US$8.4 billion merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, subject to Skydance agreeing to ensure that CBS programming is free of bias and to employ an ombudsman for at least 2 years. The approval came soon after Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump's lawsuit over the editing of a "60 Minutes" interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris, which House Democrats are now investigating. In January, Carr reinstated complaints involving the Harris CBS interview, ABC News' moderation of the Biden–Trump debate, and NBC's decision to allow Harris to appear on Saturday Night Live shortly before the election. Trump's first FCC chair, Ajit Pai, rejected similar demands in 2017, saying the agency "does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content."