Trump Threatens to Revoke Broadcast Licenses of TV Stations That Don't Boost His Iran War

Donald Trump’s favorite executive power to abuse is the FCC’s ability to revoke a broadcast license if it decides a broadcaster isn’t serving the “public interest.” Trump interprets the “public interest” to mean not being critical of him, and now he and his loyal FCC chair Brendan Carr are once again threatening broadcasters, this time over their coverage of his war in Iran.

Forbes provides an overview of Trump’s amplification of Carr’s threat:

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said Iran “is known for a lot of fake news” before claiming without evidence that U.S. television networks were working with Iran to disseminate that material. Trump told reporters that this was a “very dangerous thing for our country,” and broadcasters “could be in serious jeopardy.” The president made this unsubstantiated claim in his [social media] post as well, writing that Iran was “working in close coordination with the Fake News Media” to push an AI-generated video of the USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier on fire.

Trump’s post comes a day after Carr issued a threat to broadcasters over purported “fake news” while resharing an earlier post made by the president complain about the war coverage. The Trump appointee wrote: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions—also known as the fake news—have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.” Carr…appeared to threaten the networks saying: “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” Like with Trump, Carr did not provide any evidence of so-called fake news or distortions pertaining to the war.

Over the past few days Trump has repeatedly complained about the media’s coverage of the conflict. Last week, Trump insisted that the U.S. was “winning” the war and said: “If you read the Failing New York Times, you would incorrectly think that we are not winning.”

We need a free press for the same reason we need a Congress that asserts its power—so someone independent of the president can question the reasons for the war, its goals, and whether we really are winning or not. Trump is trying to prevent the American people from making such an independent evaluation.

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.

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