Are TV broadcasters obligated to carry the U.S. president’s comments live on their government-licensed airwaves? The current head of the FCC indicated that he believes they are.
Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, said Wednesday that the agency will consider ABC‘s decision to not carry a live broadcast President Donald Trump‘s July 16 speech about U.S. election security as part of its early review of licenses to eight ABC-owned stations.
In Trump’s speech last Thursday, the president alleged U.S. elections had been “rigged and stolen.” He claimed China had illegally accessed millions of voter files as part of a broader effort to manipulate U.S. elections in 2018 and 2020. During the speech Trump called out ABC and NBC for opting to not carry his remarks live — and said because of that, they should lose their broadcast TV licenses. It’s a threat he has made numerous times in the past in various contexts. “In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about,” Trump said, as reported by Politico. “Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”
At a press conference Wednesday, Carr noted that the FCC has an open proceeding on the early review of ABC’s station licenses to evaluate “whether they’ve been operating in the public interest,” and “I’m sure that there are going to be points raised in that proceeding” about Disney/ABC’s decision to not air Trump’s speech.
