Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said ABC’s decision not to air President Donald Trump’s address live last week would factor into the agency’s review of the network’s broadcast license.
CNN, ABC, and NBC declined to carry the speech live. However, ABC did stream the address on its digital platforms. During the address, Trump alleged that China illegally accessed millions of U.S. voter files in an effort to influence the 2018 and 2020 elections.
“When you have the president of the United States standing inside the White House delivering an important speech, I think that’s something broadcasters should be carrying. And so, obviously, this is an issue,” Carr told reporters Wednesday. “There have been lots of concerns raised, including by members of Congress, about whether broadcasters and their decisions there comply with the public interest.”
Carr’s comments came as ABC and parent company Disney filed early license renewal applications Thursday for the network’s eight owned-and-operated television stations, complying with an FCC directive issued in April. The unusual order required the company to begin the renewal process ahead of schedule as the agency investigates Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. ABC has criticized the FCC’s order, calling it “unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional.”
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s lone Democrat, criticized Carr’s Wednesday remarks, arguing the FCC has no authority to penalize broadcasters for editorial decisions.
“The FCC has no authority to punish broadcasters for exercising their First Amendment right to choose what is newsworthy,” Gomez said. “They made these decisions under presidents of both parties without any complaints, and in this case, the remarks were freely available online to anyone who wanted to watch them.”
She added that the agency’s “vague public interest standard is being used just to punish speech this administration doesn’t like, and to reward speech that it does like. That’s inappropriate, and it is contrary to the law and the Constitution.”
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The major broadcast networks have also declined to air certain speeches by former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, even after the White House requested airtime. News executives have historically weighed whether presidential remarks warrant uninterrupted coverage, particularly when they are expected to include political messaging or disputed claims.
The dispute comes as ABC faces scrutiny from the FCC on multiple fronts. Earlier this week, the network launched an advertising campaign encouraging viewers of The View to voice their support for the program amid an FCC investigation into whether the talk show violated the federal equal time rule.