After Donald Trump threatened to strip ABC’s broadcast license and forced the network into a $15 million settlement, the president-elect’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission warned its parent company that Americans “no longer trust the national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly.”
In a letter to Disney’s CEO Bob Iger, Brendan Carr lamented the “erosion in public trust” in news media, and suggested ABC was partially to blame.
Carr — who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC — said the agency would be “monitoring” ABC’s negotiations with local television stations that carry its programming.
The letter, which was obtained by CNN, appears to be using the issue of network affiliate agreements as a way to target media outlets — signaling how Trump’s incoming FCC will be going after a press he has long demonized and litigated against.
It is unclear whether Carr issued letters to other networks.
The Independent has requested comment from ABC and Trump’s transition team.
Carr suggested ABC is attempting to “extract onerous financial and operational concessions” from local broadcasters under the threat of “terminating” their agreements, “which could result in blackouts and other harms to local consumers of broadcast news and content,” according to Carr.
“I want you to know that I will be monitoring the outcome of your ongoing discussions with local broadcast TV stations to ensure that those negotiations enable local broadcast TV stations to meet their federal obligations to serve the needs of their local communities. A fair agreement would do just that,” Carr wrote.
Here's the full letter from incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr to Disney CEO Bob Iger about ABC's negotiations with affiliates – and about trust in media writ large pic.twitter.com/ARO0onozcy
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 24, 2024
The letter dated December 21 was sent days after Trump and ABC agreed to settle his defamation lawsuit against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos, who was sued for stating that Trump was found “liable for rape by a jury” during a segment that aired in March.
The $15 million settlement goes towards Trump’s presidential library.
Stephanopoulos mischaracterized the jury’s precise findings in a long-running legal battle involving allegations that Trump sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll in a department store in New York in the 1990s, and then defamed her by saying she was lying about it. A jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, not “rape” under the definition in New York’s penal law, though the federal judge overseeing the case had argued that the difference is largely a semantic one.
Trump’s years-long campaign against the press, despite relying on media outlets to elevate his brand and political profile, has escalated into litigation across the country while pressuring lawmakers to “kill” press freedom protections.
He has suggested that journalists and publishers should be jailed for shielding their sources, repeatedly threatened to yank TV broadcast licenses, and filed several unsuccessful lawsuits taking aim at First Amendment protections enshrined by the Supreme Court’s long-standing precedent in New York Times v Sullivan.
Days before Election Day, Trump sued CBS for $10 billion. Last week, he filed a lawsuit accusing a longtime pollster and her publisher interfered in the 2024 election.
Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, has openly fantasized about prosecuting journalists.
“Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you,” he told Steve Bannon last year. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Last month, Carr criticized the appearance of Vice President Kamala Harris on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, calling her pre-election cameo “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.” NBC later aired a message from Trump.
He also recently sent a letter to the chief executives of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple, accusing the companies of being members of a “censorship cartel” that included “advertising, marketing, and so-called ‘fact-checking’ organizations as well as the Biden-Harris Administration itself.” He has called fact-checking organization NewsGuard “Orwellian.”
