As we all know, Donald Trump has been at war with the mainstream media for quite some time.
That war was kicked up a notch during Trump’s first presidency, and while the media did pretend it was going to be fair for a little while, we are now back to biased reporting.
Now, Trump has someone in place at the FCC who is willing to follow through on the president's threat to have offending networks' broadcasting licenses pulled.
When CBS aired a controversial Kamala Harris interview last fall, Trump went nuclear.
He stated, “Almost every week, 60 Minutes … mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all.”
He continued, “They did not one, but TWO, major stories on ‘TRUMP,’ one having to do with Ukraine, which I say is a War that would never have happened if the 2020 Election had not been RIGGED, in other words, if I were President and, the other story was having to do with Greenland, casting our Country, as led by me, falsely, inaccurately, and fraudulently.”
Trump sued and won, but he has continued to attack the network over its alleged bias and has constantly threatened to pursue the revocation of its license.
In August, Trump renewed the call to have not only CBS’s license revoked, but also that of ABC News.
If you recall, Trump also sued that network and ended up securing a settlement due to false statements made by anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Trump claimed he was defamed, and ABC wound up settling the case for $15 million.
This only energized Trump more to go after the networks for their biased coverage, insisting that if they were not going to report honestly, they did not deserve to be on the air.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr now seems ready to follow through on Trump’s threat.
He stated, “Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows,” stating that he would be willing to pull their licenses if he and President Trump feel that the networks are “out of line.”
Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, responded, “This appears to be part of a political campaign against what the chairman perceives to be enemies of the president.”
This may not be a popular opinion, but I think pulling the licenses would backfire in a big way. I prefer calling them out and holding them accountable as the right way to expose the media's bias. I am thinking big picture here, and if we start shutting down news outlets that don’t like Trump, we are opening up a rabbit hole that will backfire big league when Democrats take charge again.
