fcc chair

President Trump and the Federal Communications Commission chairman are demanding more positive media coverage of the Iran war. On Saturday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued yet another threat to revoke licenses from news broadcasters, claiming without evidence that they are running “hoaxes and news distortions” related to the war in Iran.

In an X post, Carr shared a complaint about an Iran war headline that Trump had made on Truth Social and added his own commentary. “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. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Carr making vague threats about enforcing rules against hoaxes and news distortion is nothing new. Given how difficult it is to actually revoke a broadcast license, and the fact that no TV station licenses are up for renewal until 2028, the threats so far have been attempts to intimidate news organizations without any concrete punishment.

What’s slightly odd about Carr’s latest threat is that it’s based on a Trump complaint about a newspaper headline, not broadcast news coverage. The Trump post that spurred Carr’s latest threat was about a Wall Street Journal article.

Carr has repeatedly claimed he’s only targeting licensed broadcasters because they have an obligation to operate in the public interest as users of the public airwaves. Carr said in his Saturday message, “The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves.” But the only example Carr provided was Trump’s Truth Social post that didn’t mention any broadcast reports.

Trump’s quibble

Trump’s complaint said, “Yet again, an intentionally misleading headline by the Fake News Media about the five tanker planes that were supposedly struck down at an Airport in Saudi Arabia, and of no further use. In actuality, the Base was hit a few days ago, but the planes were not ‘struck’ or ‘destroyed.’ Four of the five had virtually no damage, and are already back in service. One had slightly more damage, but will be in the air shortly. None were destroyed, or close to that, as the Fake News said in headlines.”

The only specific news outlets Trump’s post mentioned were The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but he was referring to a Wall Street Journal article. Even if Trump’s version of events is true, his complaint wouldn’t meet the legal standard for proving a hoax or news distortion, or even prove that the Journal got anything wrong. Trump claims the planes were not “struck” but said four out of five “had virtually no damage,” which seemingly indicates that all five were struck and suffered some damage.

Trump’s post seems to accuse the Journal of falsely reporting that the planes were destroyed and would not be used again. But the Journal article makes it clear the planes were merely damaged, not destroyed, and would be repaired. It said:

Five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, according to two US officials.

The tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, the officials said. US Central Command declined to comment. The tankers were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, one of the officials said. No one was killed in the strikes.

The Journal article was published on Friday, and Trump issued his complaint on Truth Social on Saturday morning. The Journal article was updated on Saturday afternoon to include a quote from Trump’s Truth Social post. As far as we can tell, the article never claimed that any of the five tanker planes were destroyed. A Reuters article on Friday that quotes the WSJ report also uses the phrases “struck and damaged,” and “not fully destroyed,” undercutting Trump’s claim of false reporting.

The Journal article’s only reference to destroyed planes is related to a previous crash that killed six US military members. It said:

The news brings the total number of Air Force refueling planes damaged or destroyed to at least seven. It comes after two Air Force KC-135 refueling planes collided on Thursday, leading one of the aircraft to crash into the ground. All six crew members were killed, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

Trump “thrilled” by Carr’s latest threat

While it doesn’t appear that the Journal got anything wrong, it was the only example Carr provided in his complaint about fake news, hoaxes, and news distortions.

“It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news,” Carr wrote. “When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after in [sic] the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen. Time for change!”

Carr has repeatedly made statements of this sort during Trump’s second term despite writing himself in 2019 that the government should not “censor speech it doesn’t like” and that the “FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest.’”

Trump wrote last night that he is “thrilled to see Brendan Carr… looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and 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, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED.’”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is also demanding more positive media coverage of the Iran war. Criticizing CNN reporting at a press conference on Friday, Hegseth said, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.” Hegseth was referring to Paramount Skydance’s planned purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that was helped along by the Trump administration.

Carr’s threat to broadcast licenses was roundly criticized by Democrats. “If Trump doesn’t like your coverage of the war, his FCC will pull your broadcast license. That is flagrantly unconstitutional,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote, “Constitutional law 101: it’s illegal for the government to censor free speech it just doesn’t like about Trump’s Iran war. This threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook.” Carr replied by quoting the Supreme Court’s Red Lion Broadcasting decision in 1969, which said, “No one has a First Amendment right to a license or to monopolize a radio frequency; to deny a station license because ‘the public interest’ requires it ‘is not a denial of free speech.’”

“This is worse than the comedian stuff”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote, “This is a clear directive to provide positive war coverage or else licenses may not be renewed. This is worse than the comedian stuff, and by a lot. The stakes here are much higher. He’s not talking about late night shows, he’s talking about how a war is covered.”

Schatz was referring to Carr’s previous threats to stations regarding late-night talk show hosts such as ABC host Jimmy Kimmel. Even some Republicans criticized Carr’s Kimmel threats last year.

FCC Democrat Anna Gomez said the agency’s threats are dangerous because they have a chilling effect on media coverage. But the threats themselves have no legal backing, she said.

“Once again, this FCC pretends it has the power to control news coverage,” Gomez said in a statement today. “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. Early renewal attempts are exceedingly rare, and the process is so demanding that any effort would almost certainly fail, especially given the well-documented First Amendment violations underlying these moves. These threats are grounded in neither reality nor law and would not survive judicial scrutiny, just as other recent attempts by this administration to push beyond constitutional limits have repeatedly failed in court.”

At least one Republican seems concerned about Carr’s latest threat. On Fox News yesterday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was asked about Carr threatening broadcast licenses over Iran war coverage, and whether he thinks it is the role of government to police that kind of coverage.

“I’m a big supporter of the First Amendment,” Johnson responded. “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. And really, the federal government’s role is to protect our freedoms, to protect our constitutional rights.”