Donald Trump's latest threat against the media: Yanking broadcast licenses

Threatening the news media is nothing new for former President Donald Trump. He has accused major news outlets of defamation, blocked journalists from rallies and White House events, goaded followers into profane chants about CNN and popularized the term "fake news," now embraced by autocrats around the world.

Even by those standards, though, his latest anti-media obsession -- stripping television networks of their ability to broadcast the news because of coverage he doesn't like -- stands out.

"CBS should lose its license," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this month. "60 Minutes should be immediately taken off the air." He has repeated his demands in speeches and in interviews, echoing his earlier calls for ABC's license to be "terminated" because of his displeasure with how the network handled his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

On Sunday, Trump ratcheted up his threats against CBS. "We're going to subpoena their records," he told Fox News in an interview, repeating his claim that the network's edit of Harris' recent appearance on 60 Minutes was misleading.

Asked whether revoking a broadcast license was a "drastic punishment," Trump did not answer directly, instead lobbing a string of insults at Harris, whom he called "incompetent" and "a Marxist."

During the "60 Minutes" interview, which aired Oct. 7, Harris was asked about the war in the Middle East. In an early excerpt released by CBS a day before, Harris gave one lengthy answer; in the episode itself, Harris appeared to give a different, pithier reply.

Trump -- who got into a tiff with CBS before the "60 Minutes" episode, and declined to sit for an interview of his own -- quickly seized on the editing as evidence of pro-Harris bias. "60 Minutes" said on Sunday that the "two" answers were merely taken from different sections of Harris' full response to the question, and that Trump's accusation of deceitful editing "is false."

CBS' editing was perceived by rival executives as clumsy, but still well within standard journalistic practice for TV news, and media experts have dismissed Trump's claim as preposterous. But one member of the Federal Communications Commission, the regulatory agency that oversees broadcasters, has already expressed receptivity to the notion that CBS' handling of the interview may have breached federal rules.

"Interesting. (thinking face) Big if true," the commissioner, Nathan Simington, wrote on the social platform X. Trump later shared a screenshot of Simington's post on Truth Social.

Broadcast networks like ABC, CBS and NBC do not actually need a license to produce or publish news content. But the local affiliate stations that carry their broadcasts do require licenses. Those licenses are overseen by the FCC, which is independent from the White House.

A president cannot unilaterally revoke a license, but the president appoints members to the five-person commission. Simington is one of two current Republican members of the FCC appointed by Trump. The other is Brendan Carr, who has shown a fondness for Elon Musk, one of Trump's loudest champions and the owner of X, which happens to be the one major social media platform that the former president has not denigrated in recent weeks.

Simington and Carr, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday, could remain in their roles if Trump takes office. If the U.S. Senate returns to Republican control, the body would probably approve whomever Trump chooses for the FCC. And with a 3-2 majority, Trump's FCC appointees could theoretically vote to revoke whichever licenses they please.

Such a scenario requires several variables to fall Trump's way, foremost of which would be securing victory over Harris in November. It would also require the commission to ignore decades of precedent and effectively reject long-standing norms that guarantee protections for media organizations.

Still, the fact that a feasible, if narrow, path exists for Trump's proposed crackdown speaks to the permeability of federal protections for the news media -- and the obscure levers in the byzantine regulatory machine that an emboldened president may reach for in a moment of pique.

"These threats against free speech are serious and should not be ignored," Jessica Rosenworcel, the current chair of the FCC, said in a statement. "The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage."

Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chair of the FCC from 2013-17, said in an interview that Trump's threats could create a "chilling effect" on how news organizations make editorial calls.

"It is hard to yank a license; it is particularly hard to yank a license on the instruction of the president of the United States," Wheeler said. "But it is not hard to have an impact on decision making."

"I don't envy the role of a Trump chairman of the FCC," Wheeler added.

If Trump were elected again, his Justice Department would also have oversight of significant corporate media transactions.

On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump pledged to block AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, owner of CNN, a network whose coverage he frequently railed against. When he was president, the antitrust division of the Justice Department sued to block the deal, although the government ultimately lost the case at trial.

In recent years, Trump has frequently criticized Comcast, parent company of NBCUniversal and MSNBC, and called out its CEO, Brian Roberts, over NBC's news coverage. Comcast has long been rumored to be considering a merger or spinoff of NBCUniversal, although nothing has been announced.

Because of his penchant to exaggerate, and his history of employing rhetoric that does not always line up with his actions, it is difficult to parse exactly how Trump would handle these issues if he retook the White House.

For all Trump's bark, American networks and news organizations emerged relatively intact from his presidency. The news outlet that arguably suffered the steepest consequence was Fox News, which paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit stemming from Trump's baseless claims about the 2020 election.

Last week, Trump extended his media criticism to Fox News, which is home to several of his most loyal pundits. He attacked the network for airing too many "Radical Left Lunatics," and said he planned to meet with Fox's owner, Rupert Murdoch, to demand that Fox News stop running "negative commercials" about his campaign.

None of that prevented Trump from sitting for an interview that aired Sunday with Fox News host Howard Kurtz. In that conversation, Trump called The New York Times "corrupt" and suggested, in vague language, that he was "probably going to sue them at some point very soon."

He did not provide an example of the coverage that bothered him.

Even Trump's threats about broadcast licenses are not new. In 2017, he floated the idea of stripping NBC of its licenses after its news division reported a story about nuclear weapons that displeased him.

At the time, Trump was rebuked by the then-chair of the FCC, Ajit V. Pai, who said the agency "does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast. The FCC, under my leadership, will stand for the First Amendment."

In that instance, Trump took no further action. Pai, a Republican appointed by Barack Obama, served out the remainder of his term.