FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is scrutinizing NBC and ABC after President Donald Trump threatened to revoke the networks’ broadcast licenses on July 16 over their refusal to air his primetime speech on election security. Trump called the networks’ editorial decisions “fraud” and demanded license revocation, but Carr faces mounting legal pressure as constitutional experts warn that linking license proceedings to the president’s political grievances would violate the First Amendment.
Trump made the threat during a nearly 30-minute address in which he claimed China illegally accessed millions of voter files. ABC and NBC declined to carry the speech live on their main broadcast channels, though both aired the remarks on their streaming platforms. CBS, Fox News, and MS NOW chose to broadcast at least portions of the speech.
Carr, designated as FCC chairman by Trump on January 20, 2025, has already begun opening probes into the same networks that have drawn the president’s ire. According to Politico, he has called in ABC’s eight network-owned TV stations for an early renewal—years ahead of their scheduled 2028 expiration—and has scrutinized NBC parent company Comcast’s diversity practices and its relationships with other TV station owners.
Unlike Trump’s first term, when Republican FCC leaders disavowed any reprisals against critical media outlets, Carr’s actions suggest a willingness to use the agency’s regulatory powers. “We’ve never in this country had a law that permits a royal decree for news coverage,” said Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression and a former top FCC official. “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 if you link them.”
Constitutional Concerns and First Amendment Protections
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the commission’s sole Democrat, criticized Trump’s call as unconstitutional. “Those editorial decisions are protected by the First Amendment, and the FCC has no authority to punish a station for refusing to air a blatantly political speech,” Gomez said in a statement. “This is a naked attempt to bully broadcasters, and the FCC should have no part in it.”
Networks have long had discretion over whether to air presidential remarks live. Both Democratic and Republican presidents have faced refusals: ABC, CBS, and NBC declined to air President Barack Obama’s 2014 primetime speech on immigration, and multiple networks refused to broadcast President Joe Biden’s 2022 address on threats to democracy.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a veteran public interest lawyer, warned that Carr faces legal risk if he directly injects Trump’s complaint into license proceedings. “The obvious legal and constitutional questions that are raised if Brendan Carr does something because the president said so in a public speech raises all sorts of First Amendment issues about viewpoint discrimination that would be insanely impossible to surmount,” Schwartzman said.
Carr has signaled his attention to Trump’s speech by retweeting the White House livestream and posting “News incoming” with TV and eyeball emojis shortly before the address began. He has also disavowed the idea that the FCC should remain independent from White House direction, breaking from decades of tradition followed by agency leaders of both parties.
Stuart Benjamin, co-director of the Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law School, doubted courts would uphold Carr’s actions if he proceeds against the licenses. “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,” Benjamin said. “And I think that a judge who reviews it won’t have much doubt about that.”
Sources
- Politico — Carr’s scrutiny of TV broadcasters, early license renewals for ABC, diversity investigations into Comcast, and legal expert commentary on constitutional risks
- U.S. News & World Report — FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez’s statement calling Trump’s call unconstitutional
- Reuters — Trump’s threat to revoke licenses and networks’ editorial decisions
- Washington Post — Trump’s speech and networks’ refusal to carry it live
