Posted on 08/25/2025 6:46:34 AM PDT by karpov
President Trump went on a late-night attack against NBC and ABC News on Sunday, deriding them for what, in his view, was "biased" coverage and said he would be in favor of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoking their licenses.
The Republican president said the news outlets had given him negative coverage on "97%" of stories.
It wasn’t clear from where Trump was citing the "97%" figure. A study released earlier this year by the conservative media watchdog group, Media Research Center (MRC), found that coverage of the president’s first 100 days in office was "92% negative."
"IF THAT IS THE CASE," Trump wrote in his characteristic use of all caps, "THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED."
Trump said he would be "totally in favor" of the move because – according to him – these outlets are "so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy."
The president followed up with another post attacking both outlets as "FAKE NEWS" and "two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the world."
Trump questioned why both entities aren’t "paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES."
"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 wrote. "Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!"
Fox News Digital has reached out to both ABC and NBC News for a response to Trump’s posts.
Being national networks, ABC and NBC News do not hold FCC licenses for news content but provide programming for local affiliates across the country
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The networks have O&Os (owned & operated) stations in NYC, LA, and Chicago plus a number of other major cities.
Yep
The central government should no more control the content of ABC or NBC than it should the content of Free Republic.
.....
Yes!
Let’s end the DC Swamp Central Govt controlling the content of the likes of ABC and NBC
If you cannot tell the truth and have an agenda you do not deserve a license.
The 2 don’t necessarily contradict
The 92% applied to the 1st 100 days
Perhaps the 1st 7 months got to 97%
River Cities Reader
https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/smith-mundt-modernization-act-2012
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act (SMMA) was buried in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act for good reason – because it repealed the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act. The Smith-Mundt Act is also known as the U.S. Information and Education Act, which authorized the State Department to engage in propagandizing foreign countries as a form of public diplomacy.
The SMA established that via the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Voice of America (VOA), and Radio Free Europe (RFE), the U.S. State Department and Office of Public Affairs were authorized to disseminate propaganda to foreign publics, but were strictly prohibited from releasing that same propaganda in America for public consumption. Put simply, our government was permitted to lie to people in other countries, but not to us here at home.
This prohibition was lifted in 2012, when the SMMA was signed into law by President Obama, allowing the same propaganda disseminated by our government to foreign publics, to now be released in the U.S. for the very first time.
And yes, our government is also now allowed to create propaganda tailored specifically for U.S. public consumption, using any media as it sees fit, while remaining anonymous as the source of the material being reported.
Trump’s gonna Trump.
Many here will forget about that. Trump needs to show he supports First Amendment rights no matter who is exercising them.
Why? In certain narrow circumstances I believe (if memory serves) equal time must be given to opposing opinions. But as far as actual news coverage or the station’s own views those are protected by the First Amendment.
Receiving federal funds does not cancel out any Constitutional rights.
So you don’t think the nightly news should be fair.
If Trump thinks he has a case against the stations he is free to file a defamation suit. What he can’t do is demand they only broadcast news and opinions that are favorable to him. So yes, they are protected by the First Amendment.
He needs to stop using the so called Bully Pulpit. It is going to backfire big time
Says who?
Trump created that bully pulpit of Truth Social because the Govt and a Corporation worked to deplatform him and muzzle him.
So, he can talk about anything, anytime.
And does.
I know to claim the news must be “fair” and make threats to revoke any license is a violation of the First Amendment. You have heard of it, I suppose.
Even if a person claims what he writes on Truth Social isn’t “fair”?
The correct answer is of course he can continue to write on Truth Social even if some person thinks what he writes isn’t fair.
I was basically alluding to the fact that the Lame Stream Media is almost all negative towards Donald Trump, no matter what he does or what he says...
Tell that to NPR and PBS. They can broadcast all the propaganda they want, but not with taxpayer funds. If you take federal money, there is ALWAYS strings attached.
You are a youngster, we used to have a broadcast “fairness doctrine”, it was the law!
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