Donald Trump has suggested on at least 28 occasions over the past eight years that a national TV network’s licence should be revoked, according to an analysis by the Guardian. The latest instance occurred last week when, after facing aggressive questioning from ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, the US president declared that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should revoke ABC’s licence.
However, the FCC does not actually licence national networks; it licences the local television stations they own or have affiliate deals with. Anna M Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, said after a commission meeting last week that Trump’s threats were hollow. “Aside from the ability to make things difficult for those we retaliate, this FCC is powerless to truly retaliate against a news network,” she said, noting that no local station licences were up for renewal “any time soon”.
Trump has repeatedly sought redress for what he considers unfair reporting about him and his administration. Despite his threats, the legal framework for revoking a network’s licence does not exist in the way he suggests.
