President Donald Trump threatened to strip ABC and NBC of their broadcast licenses after the two networks declined to carry his primetime address on the 2020 election live on July 17. The threat, which First Amendment advocates quickly dismissed as legally baseless, marks the latest escalation in the president’s long-running campaign against news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.
Over roughly 25 minutes on July 17, Trump revisited one of his most familiar themes, delivering grievances against the media, China, and what he described as a network of conspirators he claims stole the 2020 election. That allegation has been debunked repeatedly, and the newly declassified evidence Trump touted during the address did not support the case he described.
ABC and NBC announced ahead of time that they would stick with their regularly scheduled programming rather than broadcast the speech live, though both said they would carry it on their streaming platforms. CBS did air the address. CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil told viewers that while “much of” Trump’s commentary on the topic “has been false,” the network planned to broadcast the speech as part of its news coverage. CBS ended its coverage with roughly five minutes of the speech still remaining.
Trump Targets the Networks From the Podium
During the speech itself, Trump singled out the networks that had declined to air it. “In a rare move, NBC and ABC, fake news, have both said that they would not cover this speech,” he said. He went further, claiming that what he called fraud “should mean a revocation of their licenses,” and complaining that the networks use public airwaves he valued in the multibillions “for absolutely no money.”
Trump seemed to mean broadcast licenses granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which allow use of the public airwaves. His threat faced an immediate obstacle: the networks themselves do not possess such licenses. ABC and NBC create programming, but transmission falls to local affiliate stations, which hold the FCC authorizations. Those affiliates are largely separate corporate entities, not subsidiaries of the networks. Trump has made the same error repeatedly over the years. Throughout his first presidency and into his second, which started January 20, 2025, he has issued similar warnings against networks over unfavorable reporting.
No Legal Power to Compel Coverage
Lukianoff said this was not the first time networks declined to carry a presidential address live, and he characterized threatening licenses over editorial choices as an attack on free speech protections.
A Familiar Move by Presidents of Both Parties
Networks have declined to broadcast presidential speeches before. In September 2022, President Joe Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia that criticized Donald Trump and what he called MAGA extremism. ABC, NBC, and CBS all chose not to air that address live, viewing it as partisan campaigning before the midterm elections rather than a traditional presidential message.
Similarly, when President Barack Obama announced new immigration actions at the southern border in November 2014, the major broadcast networks declined to carry his speech, concluding it was too political in nature. Biden and Obama did not respond by threatening the networks with license revocation.
In practice, few viewers who wanted to watch Trump’s address had trouble finding it. The speech aired in its entirety on cable news, on YouTube, across social media, and on the White House website, in addition to the networks’ streaming platforms.
For now, the threat remains rhetorical. No formal action against ABC, NBC, or their affiliates has been announced, and the FCC’s licensing authority does not extend to punishing networks for editorial choices about which speeches to broadcast. But the episode underscores a pattern that has defined much of Trump’s relationship with the press: when coverage does not go his way, the response is a public demand for consequences — even ones the law does not permit.