Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is using his pulpit to reject coverage of US military action in Iran that his boss, President Trump, doesn't like, marking an extraordinary escalation in his clashes with the media.
On Saturday, Carr posted a message on X suggesting that television stations could lose their government licenses to use the public airwaves if they “fail to operate in the public interest.”
Below his statement, Carr shared a social media post from Trump, who complained about stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal about five refueling tankers that were hit during an Iranian missile attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Carr took advantage of Trump's letter to issue a warning to the television media, which are frequently threatened by the president when he is angry about their coverage.
It's the FCC chairman's latest attempt to put pressure on media companies that irritate Trump with critical coverage of his administration.
Since taking over as FCC chairman last year, Carr has repeatedly threatened to use the levers of power he has to punish radio and television stations when they find themselves in Trump's crosshairs. His behavior has alarmed free speech advocates.
“Broadcasters that are spreading hoaxes and news distortions, also known as fake news, now have the opportunity to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote, without providing evidence to support his claims. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest and will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr's threats are based on his claims that he wants to enforce the FCC's public interest obligation for broadcasters that use the airwaves. He made similar comments in the fall, prompting two major television station groups to keep “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from ABC. off the air for a week due to comments the presenter made about murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly attacked news organizations for any information that doesn't say the war in Iran is nothing more than a great success.
On Friday, Hegseth said he took aim at CNN and said that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”
Ellison, the Paramount chief executive who, along with his father, has forged strong ties to the White House, will have control over CNN in addition to CBS if the company's deal to acquire the news outlet's parent, Warner Bros. Discovery, is completed.
Carr made the appointment of an ombudsman for CBS News a condition of approving Ellison's deal with Skydance Partners to acquire Paramount last year. Paramount also drew scrutiny for its controversial decision to pay $16 million to resolve Trump's legal salvo against “60 Minutes” for editing an interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Most legal analysts considered the case frivolous.
The FCC has no jurisdiction over CNN, which is why most of Carr's comments are directed at ABC, CBS and NBC, which air on local television stations. He once wrote in X: “More Americans trust gas station sushi than legacy national media.”
Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that he was “thrilled” by Carr's comments and would support her efforts to go after what he called “highly unpatriotic 'news' organizations.”
“They take billions of dollars worth of FREE American airwaves and use them to perpetuate LIES, both on the news and on almost all of their shows, including the Late Night Morons, who receive huge salaries for horrible ratings,” Trump wrote.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a Washington-based public interest communications attorney, believes Carr's conduct and threats violate the First Amendment, adding that any serious attempt to revoke licenses would be tied to legal challenges.
“Even if he started trying to deny the license renewal as quickly as possible, Brendan Carr would already be gone before the case was over,” Schwartzman said. “The law intentionally places a very heavy burden on the FCC in denying renewal of a license; the process takes many years, during which time the licensee continues to operate normally under 'continuing operating authority.'”
Carr's comments on Saturday sparked an immediate reaction from Democrats and First Amendment advocates, pointing out that the FCC's role does not include policing the free press.
“Once again, this FCC intends to have the power to control news coverage,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said in a statement Monday. “In reality, the FCC has very little power over national news networks. It licenses local broadcast stations, not the networks, and there are no licenses to renew until 2028.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom also weighed in, posting: “If Trump doesn't like your war coverage, your FCC will take away your broadcast license. That's blatantly unconstitutional.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), usually a reliable voice of support for the Trump administration, expressed concern about Carr's comments.
“I'm a big supporter of the First Amendment,” Johnson told Fox News on Sunday. “I don't like the heavy hand of government, no matter who exercises it. I would prefer that the federal government stay as far away from the private sector as possible.”
Gómez added that while attempts to withdraw licenses border on madness, Carr's threats and attacks on the media can create a chilling effect and erode public trust in the press.
“Over the past year, this FCC has attacked the media as part of a years-long campaign by this Administration and its allies to discredit objective, independent coverage while blaming the press for growing public distrust,” Gomez said. “Meanwhile, it is the FCC's own credibility and public trust that is rapidly eroding.”
Trump is not the first president to attack television station licenses in response to negative news coverage. At the height of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Richard Nixon's allies attempted to challenge the television licenses of three stations then owned by the Washington Post.
The effort did not go very far.
The last Los Angeles outlet to lose its broadcast license was KHJ in 1987, when the station was part of RKO General, a media company owned by General Tire and Rubber Co. The case was related to corporate misconduct and not content broadcast on the stations.
The process to revoke RKO licenses took seven years from the time the FCC voted in favor of the measure.
“Since then, only small family radio stations have been litigated,” Schwartzman said. “The cases almost always involve lying to the government, felony convictions, or failure to pay regulatory fees. In one recent case, a small property owner convicted of tax evasion still had his license.”
There would be other logistical obstacles for the FCC to follow through on Carr's threats.
As Gomez pointed out, Carr's FCC only has regulatory control over the television stations that broadcast the network's signals. If stations abandoned the network's programming for any reason, they could violate their affiliation contracts and lose the right to broadcast NFL football and other content that generates big ratings and revenue.
Sinclair Broadcast Group wanted Kimmel to apologize to Kirk's family and contribute to his organization Turning Point USA before putting the host's late-night show on the air.
That didn't happen and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” I returned to the Sinclair stations anyway.
