President Donald Trump took direct aim at two of the biggest broadcast networks, calling ABC and NBC “an arm of the Democrat Party” and accusing them of giving him overwhelmingly negative coverage. He argued their programming is so slanted that it poses a danger to democracy itself.
In a late-night Truth Social post, Trump claimed that 97 percent of their stories about him are negative, citing the figure as evidence of bias. He compared that number to earlier findings from the Media Research Center, which reported 92 percent negative coverage in his first 100 days. “IF THAT IS THE CASE,” Trump wrote, “THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED.”
The president said he would be “totally in favor” of stripping the networks’ licenses, or at the very least requiring them to pay substantial fees to use public airwaves. “They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives,” Trump said, adding that “Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!”
He followed up with another post blasting both outlets as “two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the world.”
ABC and NBC, as national networks, do not directly hold FCC licenses, but their local affiliates do. Those stations are regulated by the FCC and must maintain licenses to operate. Trump’s remarks highlight his willingness to pressure the regulatory system — and by extension, Congress — to address what he views as unchecked media bias.
Trump also questioned why these networks aren’t “paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES” given their use of America’s broadcast spectrum. Current rules require broadcasters and cable outlets to pay fees based on their size and market, but Congress controls those amounts.
This is not the first time Trump has clashed with the networks. Last year, he forced ABC to settle a defamation suit for $15 million, and he also reached a settlement with CBS earlier this year over its coverage of election-related claims. NBC, which once hosted Trump’s hit show “The Apprentice,” has long been a frequent target of his criticism.
For Trump, the attacks fit into a broader pattern: confronting what he calls dishonest, politically motivated reporting. By raising the prospect of pulling licenses, he’s signaling that his administration will not ignore what millions of Americans see as systemic bias in corporate media.
The fight underscores one of the most heated battles of the Trump era: whether legacy news networks are informing the public — or misleading them to serve a partisan agenda. With Trump now openly talking about yanking licenses, the standoff between the White House and the media has reached a new and explosive stage.
