WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has used lawsuits and government pressure as he seeks to remake the American media landscape — an industry that scrutinized him for years.
He’s extracted multimillion-dollar settlements, forced companies into costly litigation and prompted changes to programming that he found objectionable.
Now, Trump is escalating his campaign, invigorated by successful efforts to push ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air for his commentary on conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination at a university in Utah.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, the Republican president said federal regulators should consider revoking broadcast licenses for networks that “give me only bad publicity.”
“All they do is hit Trump,” he said. “They’re licensed! They’re not allowed to do that. They’re an arm of the Democrat Party.”
Brendan Carr, Trump’s handpicked head of the Federal Communications Commission, issued a similar warning the prior day. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
ABC suspended Kimmel hours later.
Critics fear crackdowns on free speech
Trump reached settlements with ABC and CBS over their coverage. He filed defamation lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Republicans in Congress stripped federal funding from NPR and PBS.
At the FCC, Carr used his influence to target diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to root out what he describes as liberal bias.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, Trump clamped down more firmly, with broader implications for the future of the free speech protections.
Attorney General Pam Bondi recently said, “we will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Her words alarmed advocates who fear an elastic definition of the term could be used to criminalize dissent.
The First Amendment is widely viewed as protecting even the most disparaging remarks, and the Supreme Court said in an unanimous opinion last year that “government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
Bondi later revised her comments to say she’ll focus on “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence.”
Todd Blanche, Bondi’s deputy, suggested protesters could have violated the law by yelling at Trump while he visited a restaurant near the White House. He said authorities could investigate whether it’s “part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States.”
Politics and comedy collide on late-night shows
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said Monday night. He also compared Trump’s grief to “how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
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Trump allies said Kimmel falsely suggested the shooter was right-wing. Authorities have not formally presented a motive for the killing, but evidence indicates he held liberal beliefs.
On Wednesday, Carr appeared on a podcast hosted by Benny Johnson, a conservative commentator. Carr criticized Kimmel and said, “you could make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core fundamental fact.”
Carr placed the move against Kimmel in the broader context of Trump’s efforts to undermine the power of legacy media companies.
“He smashed the facade that they get to control what we say, what we think, the narrative around events,” Carr said. “And we’re seeing a lot of consequences from President Trump doing that.”
Reminding affiliates that their broadcast licenses come with an “obligation to operate in the public interest,” Carr said “it’s time for them to step up” and say Kimmel’s content “isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities.”
Kimmel faces corporate backlash
It didn’t take long for Nexstar Media Group, the country’s biggest operator of television stations, to echo some of Carr’s language.
“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time,” Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said in statement.
The controversy landed at a sensitive time for Nexstar, which needs FCC approval for its $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna.
ABC soon announced that Kimmel would be taken off the air. It is unclear when or whether he will return. Kimmel has not commented publicly.
Later in the evening, the television company Sinclair said its stations would carry “a special in remembrance of Charlie Kirk” on Friday during Kimmel’s usual time slot. The company also asked Kimmel to apologize to Kirk’s family and donate money to Turning Point USA, the conservative group that Kirk turned into a political powerhouse.
House Democratic leaders, in a statement, accused Carr of “bullying ABC” and “forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration,” and said a “war” on the First Amendment by Trump and the GOP “is blatantly inconsistent with American values.”
Trump called Kimmel’s suspension “Great News for America” on his social media platform.
CBS already announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show over the summer, and Trump called for the cancellation of shows by Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
“Do it NBC!!!” he wrote.
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