Trump demands ABC and NBC lose broadcast licences after networks refuse to air his election integrity speech live

The speech and the snub

President Donald Trump delivered a primetime address on election integrity from the East Room of the White House on Thursday night. NBC, ABC and CNN declined to carry the speech live on their main linear television channels, a decision the president immediately cast as evidence of a conspiracy. Fox and Fox News Channel aired the entire address in real time. CBS preempted its regular schedule for a special report that included portions of the speech alongside context about Trump's history of unverified election claims. MS NOW covered clips in real time within its scheduled news programming. NBC and ABC did stream the remarks on their digital platforms.

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.

The licence threat

Speaking from the East Room, Trump asserted that the networks' refusal to grant him live airtime constituted fraud and should trigger the revocation of their government-issued broadcast licences. He claimed without evidence that the outlets were complicit in a broader effort to conceal corruption in the electoral system. The president argued that broadcasters use public airwaves worth billions of dollars at no cost and owe honesty in return.

Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public multi-billion-dollar-in-value airways for absolutely no money.

The FCC pressure campaign

The threat lands against an existing backdrop of regulatory scrutiny. Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump ally, has already opened an investigation into ABC's talk show "The View" over compliance with federal broadcast rules. Carr has also called in ABC's eight broadcast station licences for early review, citing an inquiry into the network's diversity practices. ABC is currently fighting a licence renewal battle. The official White House rapid response account on X also criticised CNN for not carrying the address live.

What the networks said

ABC and NBC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday night, nor did the FCC. The networks did not publicly specify why they declined to air the speech, though several observers noted that broadcasters are often reluctant to grant airtime to presidents for overtly political purposes. The caution follows Fox News' $787 million defamation settlement over its airing of false election claims. CBS parent Paramount Skydance has been cultivating ties with the Trump administration as it seeks regulatory approval to close its merger.

The speech's content and the Democratic response

In his address, Trump claimed the Chinese government tried to undermine the 2020 election and illegally accessed millions of voter files as part of a broader effort to manipulate US elections in 2018 and 2020. He offered no evidence for the assertions. Democratic lawmakers immediately condemned the licence threat, calling it an authoritarian attack on democracy and the First Amendment. Opposition figures described the speech as an attempt to spread disinformation and stoke conspiracy theories ahead of the midterm elections, with the political goal of pressuring the Senate to pass the contested Save America Act.

They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to protect the radical left.