Trump Wants To Revoke Broadcast Licenses Of Networks That Didn't Air His Election Meddling Speech

President Donald Trump on Thursday said that US TV networks that refused to air his primetime address on election integrity should have their licenses revoked. 

During the address, Trump said that both NBC and ABC News said they "would not cover the speech" - something he called a "rare move." 

"They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it," he said, adding "Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public, multi-billion-dollar in value airwaves for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting."

ABC News said on Thursday that they would run the speech - but only on their live streaming platform and ABC News Radio - but not on its broadcast channel. NBC News also aired the speech on its streaming platform. 

As the Epoch Times notes further, Trump announced the declassification of information that he said reveals large-scale Chinese hacking of American voter information, saying that China obtained 220 million voter records during the 2020 election.

The president also detailed the findings of a Homeland Security Department review that found 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in federal elections. Trump said he had ordered the agency to notify states and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from their voter rolls.

White House communications director Steven Cheung called out NBC and ABC News for not airing the president’s address and encouraged viewers to watch it on the White House’s platform instead.

“NBC and ABC don’t want you to hear the truth. All they want to do is hide the facts from YOU. Tune in @WhiteHouse at 9:00pm EDT, where we always get bigger ratings than any of the networks,” Cheung said in a post on X.

Trump had previously called for the broadcast licenses of ABC News and NBC to be revoked over what he described as “unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.” He also accused the networks of being “an arm of the Democrat Party.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in April ordered an early review of license renewals for eight Disney-owned ABC television stations. The FCC was also looking into whether ABC’s daytime talk ​show “The View” violated federal rules requiring broadcast stations to provide equal airtime to all political party candidates.