Politics
FCC chair threatens to pull TV licenses over Iran news coverage. Why that’s highly unlikely
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is using his bully pulpit to push back against coverage of the U.S. military action in Iran that his boss President Trump doesn’t like, marking an extraordinary escalation in his clashes with the media.
On Saturday, Carr posted a message on X suggesting TV stations could lose their government licenses to use the public airwaves if they “don’t operate in the public interest.”
Underneath his statement, Carr shared a social media post from Trump, who complained about the New York Times and Wall Street Journal stories on the five refueling tankers that were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
Carr seized on Trump’s missive to issue a warning to TV outlets, which are frequently threatened by the president when he is angry at their coverage.
It’s the latest attempt by the FCC chair to apply pressure on media companies that irritate Trump with critical coverage of his administration.
Since becoming FCC chairman last year, Carr has repeatedly threatened to use the levers of power he has to punish TV and radio stations when they get in Trump’s crosshairs. His behavior has alarmed free speech advocates.
“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, without providing evidence to back up his claims. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr’s threats are based on his assertions that said he wants to enforce the FCC’s public interest obligation for broadcasters that use the airwaves. He made similar remarks in the fall, which prompted two major TV station groups to keep ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air for a week due to remarks the host made regarding slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have repeatedly attacked news organizations for any reporting that doesn’t say the war in Iran is anything but a rousing success.
On Friday, Hegseth said took aim at CNN and said “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network the better.”
Ellison, the chief executive of Paramount who, along with his father, has forged strong ties to the White House, will have control over CNN in addition to CBS if the company’s deal to acquire the news outlet’s parent Warner Bros. Discovery is completed.
Carr made the appointment of an ombudsman for CBS News a condition to approve Ellison’s Skydance Partners deal to acquire Paramount last year. Paramount also drew scrutiny over its controversial decision to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s legal salvo against “60 Minutes” over the editing of an interview with his 2024 opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Most legal analysts viewed the case as frivolous.
The FCC has no jurisdiction over CNN, which is why most of Carr’s barbs are aimed at ABC, CBS and NBC, which air on local TV stations. He once wrote on X, “More Americans trust gas station sushi than the legacy national media.”
Trump said in a social media post Sunday that he was “thrilled” with Carr’s remarks and would support his efforts to go after what he called “Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”
“They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible ratings,” Trump wrote.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a Washington-based public interest communications attorney, believes Carr’s conduct and threats violate the 1st Amendment, adding that any serious attempt to revoke licenses would be tied up in legal challenges.
“Even if he started to try to deny a license renewal as quickly as he could, Brendan Carr would be long gone before that case would be over,” Schwartzman said. “The law intentionally sets out a very steep burden for the FCC to deny a license renewal; the process takes many years, during which time the licensee continues to operate normally under ‘continuing operating authority.’”
Carr’s remarks Saturday drew immediate blowback from Democrats and 1st Amendment advocates, noting the FCC’s role does not include policing the free press.
“Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Monday in a statement. “In reality, the FCC has vanishingly little power over national news networks. It licenses local broadcast stations, not networks, and no licenses are up for renewal until 2028.”
Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom weighed in as well, posting, “If Trump doesn’t like your coverage of the war, his FCC will pull your broadcast license. That is flagrantly unconstitutional.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), usually a reliable voice of support for the Trump administration, expressed his concerns over Carr’s remarks.
“I’m a big supporter of the 1st Amendment,” Johnson told Fox News on Sunday. “I do not like the heavy hand of government no matter who’s wielding it. I’d rather the federal government stay out of the private sector as much as possible.”
Gomez added that while attempts to pull licenses border on folly, Carr’s threats and attacks on the media can create a chilling effect and erode the public’s confidence in the press.
“Over the past year, this FCC has attacked the media as part of a years-long campaign by this Administration and its allies to discredit factual, independent coverage while blaming the press for growing public distrust,” Gomez said. “Meanwhile, it is the FCC’s own credibility and public trust that are rapidly eroding.”
Trump is not the first president to target TV station licenses in response to negative news coverage. At the height of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, Richard Nixon’s allies attempted to challenge the TV licenses for three stations owned at the time by the Washington Post.
The effort didn’t get far.
The last Los Angeles outlet to lose its broadcast license was KHJ in 1987, when the station was part of RKO General, a media company owned by the General Tire and Rubber Co. The case was related to corporate malfeasance and not broadcast content on the stations.
The process to revoke the RKO licenses took seven years from the moment the FCC voted in favor of the move.
“Since then, only small mom-and-pop radio stations have been litigated,” Schwartzman said. “The cases nearly always involve lying to the government, felony convictions or failure to pay regulatory fees. In one recent case, a small owner convicted of tax evasion still kept his license.”
There would be other logistical hurdles to the FCC making good on Carr’s threats.
As Gomez noted, Carr’s FCC only has regulatory control over the TV stations that carry the network signals. If stations were to drop network programming for any reason, they could violate their affiliation contracts and lose the right to carry NFL football and other content that delivers big ratings and revenue.
Sinclair Broadcast Group wanted Kimmel to apologize to Kirk‘s family and contribute to his organization Turning Point USA before putting the host’s late night show on the air.
That did not happen and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to Sinclair’s stations anyway.
The F.B.I. and prosecutors shared on Thursday new footage of the man charged with trying to assassinate President Trump during the White House correspondents’ dinner at the Washington Hilton last weekend, leading up to when shots were fired.
The video contains more than five minutes of edited and annotated surveillance footage that is sped up and slowed down in parts. It was shared on social media by the F.B.I. and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
In her post on Thursday, Ms. Pirro asserted that the video resolved uncertainty about whose gunfire had struck a Secret Service officer, who was protected by his bulletproof vest. The video, she wrote, showed that the man charged in the case, Cole Tomas Allen, had shot the Secret Service officer, and that there was “no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.”
President Trump shared similar footage on Saturday, showing the assailant running through a magnetometer before law enforcement officers drew their guns. He was brought down and disarmed at the top of a staircase leading down to the floor where the dinner was being held, and officials said they recovered a shotgun, a handgun and knives from him.
Law enforcement and administration officials had previously stopped short of definitively saying whose gunfire had struck the officer’s vest, and the charges lodged against Mr. Allen on Monday, including attempted assassination, did not include shooting a federal officer, only with firing a weapon. In a court filing on Wednesday, prosecutors said they believed that the Mr. Allen fired his shotgun down the staircase.
Most of the newly released video is focused on other elements of Mr. Allen’s actions. It opens with footage the authorities have time-stamped as occurring on April 24, the day before the episode, and shows him walking through the hotel corridor and entering the gym.
In the segment showing Mr. Allen running through the magnetometer, officers appear to be breaking down the security station. He raises the shotgun as he races past them and aims it at security officers. The video has no sound, and it is unclear whether he discharges a shot.
The video then replays the footage at a slower speed, pausing and placing a circle around Mr. Allen as he runs through the magnetometer, then pausing and placing circles around officers’ guns as they appear to fire them.
A frame-by-frame analysis suggests Mr. Allen may have fired his 12-gauge shotgun during that confrontation. The clue is in the dust in the ceiling lights unsettled by the gunfire. In the frame after Mr. Allen aims at the security officers, the video shows that dust resting in two ceiling lights has been disturbed and is drifting downward. It is possible that this was caused by a muzzle blast from Mr. Allen’s shotgun. It is not until the next frame in the video — after the dust has been unsettled — that a Secret Service agent returns fire.
Public defenders for Mr. Allen argued in a court filing that there had been contradictions in the description of the shots fired, and that the video evidence did not show a muzzle flash from his shotgun.
Prosecutors have countered that the evidence showed Mr. Allen fired the shotgun at least once as he ran past the magnetometers and that one spent shell was found in the recovered weapon.
Politics
MN governor race to replace Walz sees major shakeup as GOP contender ends campaign: ‘Don’t see a path’
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FIRST ON FOX: Minnesota Republican lawmaker Kristin Robbins, chair of the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, announced on Friday she is ending her gubernatorial campaign to replace embattled Gov. Tim Walz.
“It was not a tough decision to get into the race 10 months ago,” Robbins exclusively told Fox News Digital. “We could not allow Tim Walz to have a third term in Minnesota. He’s destroyed our state, and we had to stop him, and so, I think I made a great case for that, and because of all my work on the fraud committee he got out nine months ahead of schedule, which is great.”
Robbins continued, “Once Senator Klobuchar became sort of the anointed candidate to replace him, I just think the establishment kind of circled the wagons and, you know, it became a challenging endeavor, and I’m a realist, and I am a numbers person, and when I look at the math, I don’t see a path for me to win.”
Weeks after Walz dropped his re-election bid in January amid a massive fraud scandal that unfolded during his watch, Sen. Amy Klobuchar jumped into the race, bringing her deep political backing and name recognition with her as the presumptive nominee for the Democrats.
MINNESOTA LAWMAKERS UNLOAD ON WALZ’S ‘LEGACY’ AFTER HE TOUTS FRAUD RECORD IN FINAL ADDRESS: ‘RIDICULOUS’
Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks to reporters after announcing he will not seek re-election at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Jan. 5, 2026. (Reuters/Tim Evans)
Robbins told Fox News Digital she determined it was better to “bow out” and find a “new way to contribute” due to love of her state and the realization that there are “many ways to serve.”
In terms of what’s next, Robbins says she hasn’t had the time to give that much thought but said she is focused on closing out the current legislative session and said “there’s a lot of big things going on in the front committee.”
“I know where the bodies are buried,” Robbins said about the fraud situation, pointing out that there is much more work to be done to get answers on how the billions of dollars in fraud was allowed to go unchecked for so long.
MN LAWMAKER TAKES ACTION TO GET ANSWERS ON OMAR’S ALLEGED FRAUD TIES AFTER SHE SKIPS KEY HEARING: ‘GHOSTED US’
With Robbins exiting the race, the Republicans vying to win the gubernatorial primary include Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, healthcare executive Kendall Qualls, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and several other lesser known candidates.
Robbins told Fox News Digital she will “not be endorsing anyone.”
“That will be up to the voters to decide, and I wish all the other candidates well,” Robbins said.
Ultimately, Robbins says her “overwhelming thought” is “gratitude” when she looks back on her campaign.
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Minnesota State Rep. Kristin Robbins testifies before Congress during a hearing. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“I am so grateful for the last ten months of going all over the state meeting Minnesotans from every walk of life and to have had the privilege to run for governor and meet all these amazing people and hear their stories, be inspired by what they want for Minnesota,” Robbins said. “I am just so grateful and so privileged.”
Robbins says that going forward, the “answers” are not going to come from the capitol in St. Paul, but rather “from the communities and from the people” and she “looks forward to plugging into that.”
Politics
Your guide to the California secretary of state race: Democrat Shirley Weber vs. Republican Don Wagner
Across the country, debates over voter identification laws have become a flash point in broader fights about election security and voting access.
Supporters of voter ID laws say they are needed to prevent election fraud and ensure only eligible voters cast ballots. Critics argue there is little evidence of noncitizens voting and say the requirements instead would reduce voter participation in elections.
Under California law, voters in the state are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. The state does require ID when registering to vote, and residents must swear under penalty of perjury that they are eligible to vote and they are a U.S. citizen.
Weber has opposed proposals that would require voters to show identification in order to cast a ballot. She and many Democratic leaders argue that voter ID laws can create barriers for eligible voters, particularly those who may not have easy access to government-issued identification.
Weber believes Voter ID efforts are meant to sow doubt in the integrity of the elections system.
“When you really get to it, Voter ID is a smoke screen for trying to create the idea that this is a corrupt system,” she said.
Weber instead supports policies aimed at expanding participation among eligible voters, including vote-by-mail ballots and automatic registration.
Conversely, Wagner wants the state to require voters to show ID at the polls. He argues that requiring identification would strengthen public trust in election results and align California with practices used in many other states. He said it’s patronizing to minorities when critics argue it’s hard for them to get identification.
“You need an ID to drive,” he said. “You need an ID to fly in a plane. You need one to buy alcohol. You need it to buy tobacco.”
Wagner has been working with proponents of the Voter ID ballot measure to raise money and helped gather signatures. That statewide ballot measure would require state or local elections officials to verify that Californians registering to vote are U.S. citizens by “using government data,” which according to supporters could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, jury summons information and other government records.
“What I’m pledging the people of California is that if they pass voter ID, I will protect it. I will sue if I have to,” Wagner said. “If I am secretary of state, I will implement it and hold the registrars accountable and hold my office and myself accountable for doing the will of the people.”
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