Trump Threatens ABC With an FCC Investigation for Reporting that He Solicited the Qatari Palace in the Sky as a Plane Bribe

May 18, 2025

How do we know Donald Trump is accepting a $400 million bribe from the royal family of Qatar? Because the media reported it—and they have followed up by revealing that Trump actively solicited the bribe. So, naturally, Trump is threatening the media, starting with ABC News.

The Hill reports on this, while it still can:

President Trump is threatening ABC News over its coverage of a luxury jet he is set to receive from Qatar, a decision that is drawing criticism from both congressional leaders and national security experts.
“Why doesn’t Chairman Bob Iger do something about ABC Fake News,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday, name-checking the Disney CEO who presides over the broadcast news network. The president referenced a multimillion-dollar settlement the network paid him late last year over comments made by George Stephanopoulos in which the “This Week” anchor falsely said Trump had been convicted of sexual assault. [Executive Watch factcheck: Trump was found liable for “sexual abuse.” Decide for yourself whether that counts as “sexual assault.”] The company retracted and apologized for the remarks.
“Now I see they are at it again, and I again give these SleazeBags fair warning,” Trump wrote in his weekend post. …
Trump has threatened a number of leading news networks over their coverage of him during his second term in office, urging his Federal Communications Commission to investigate the outlets and refusing questions from reporters working for those he says are not fair to him.

The purpose of this sort of threat is obvious: To intimidate news organizations into reporting events in terms favorable to Trump—or to suppress their reporting altogether. Trump wants to be able to profit from his office without the public having clear knowledge of what he is doing.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X.