Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is facing backlash after he threatened broadcasters’ licenses amid President Donald Trump’s complaints about media coverage of the Iran war.
“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote Saturday on X. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr’s post included a screenshot of Trump’s earlier Truth Social rant about “fake news” and legacy media outlets’ coverage of the conflict with Iran, which is now entering its third week.
His warning marks the administration’s latest threat to news organizations after the president repeatedly railed against outlets over stories he doesn’t like and threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses for coverage he deems unfair since returning to the White House.
Several Democratic lawmakers were quick to push back on Carr’s statement.
California Governor Gavin Newsom suggested the warning is “flagrantly unconstitutional,” while Senator Mark Kelly called it an “overreach by the FCC.”
Representative Ted Lieu told the FCC chair to “take your fascist s*** and shove it.”
“If you implement your flagrantly anti First Amendment actions, you will be sued and you will lose,” he wrote on X. “And legal discovery will be awesome. Because the American people can then find out what the Administration keeps hiding.”
Senator Chris Murphy also accused the administration of “telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled.”
“A truly extraordinary moment,” he wrote on X. “We aren’t on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. Act like it.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said Americans “demand uncensored news about the men and women serving in our armed forces.”
“Brendan Carr’s authoritarian warning — that networks risk their broadcasting licenses for Iran war reporting that the government doesn’t like — is outrageous,” the organization said. “When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong.”
The backlash comes just weeks after Carr confirmed his agency is exploring an “enforcement action” against ABC’s The View related to the equal time rule, which requires that broadcasters provide the same amount of airtime to competing political candidates if requested.
Around the same time, Carr also slammed late-night TV show host Stephen Colbert, who had claimed CBS told him not to air an interview with a Democratic Senate candidate from Texas. The network later said Colbert “was not prohibited” from running the interview, but rather advised that doing so could trigger the equal time rule.
“CBS was very clear that Colbert could run the interview that he wanted with that political candidate,” Carr told Fox News host Laura Ingraham last month.
“They just said, ‘you may have to comply with equal time,’ which would have meant potentially giving air time to Jasmine Crockett and another candidate,” he added. “But instead of doing that, they claimed that they were victims.”
