By Steve Holland
In a surprising twist during an official event at the Oval Office, President Donald Trump expressed strong disapproval of a question posed by an ABC News reporter. This led him to suggest that the broadcasting licenses used by ABC affiliates, which fall under Walt Disney, should be “taken away.”
While at a meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Trump unequivocally stated, “I think the license should be taken away from ABC, because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong.” His frustration seemed to stem from the question about the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein political scandal.
Trump did not hold back in his comments, commending the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr — whom he appointed in January — for looking into the issue of revoking licenses. Carr had spent the weekend in Florida meeting with Trump, a detail he shared on social media.
This remark wasn’t an isolated incident, as Trump has previously criticized ABC for various reasons. Just this past September, he praised Carr when he pressed for actions against Jimmy Kimmel, an ABC late-night talk show host, over Kimmel’s remarks regarding the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The former President has repeatedly urged the FCC to yank the station licenses from both ABC and NBC, which is owned by Comcast. According to the FCC regulations, broadcasting licenses are granted for eight years to individual stations, not to the network as a whole. Although the FCC does hold the power to revoke a license based on a public interest standard, such actions have been rare, occurring only once in over four decades.
Earlier this month, Trump took aim at NBC, calling for radical measures against late-night host Seth Meyers after a sarcastic segment Meyers presented.
In a notable corporate move, just this July, the FCC approved a sizable $8.4 billion merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media, under the condition that CBS’s news and entertainment contents remain unbiased and incorporate a review panel for at least two years.
It’s worth noting that Trump’s initial FCC chief, Ajit Pai, did not act on Trump’s advisory to revoke NBC’s licenses in 2017 due to specific content, citing the agency’s limitation in such cases.
