Over the weekend, the Trump administration threatened the broadcast licenses of news organizations that it claims are reporting unfair or distorted news about the war in Iran. On March 15, the president himself backed up Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, who made the initial threats.
“I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “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.’”
During a Pentagon briefing on March 13, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took aim at CNN, saying, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” referring to the recent acquisition of CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, by Paramount. Ellison is Paramount’s CEO and a Trump ally.
But coverage of the Iran war has clearly struck a nerve with the administration, which is now making large and broad threats against news organizations in a markedly unprecedented way. The question: Do those threats carry any weight? Not really, experts say.
Do the threats actually carry legal weight?
“Carr’s threats don’t have much legal teeth,” says Tara Puckey, president and CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association. “The FCC regulates obscenity and technical operations, not editorial decisions. Courts have been clear on that for decades. If [Carr] tries to pull a license over news coverage, he’s going to lose. And he knows that.”
Puckey says that doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be a downstream effect of the threats. “The chilling effect is the strategy. If local stations start pulling punches on stories—especially smaller [stations] that can’t afford a prolonged legal fight—Carr wins without ever setting foot in a courtroom. You don’t need a legal victory when fear does the work for you.”
Why local broadcasters are most vulnerable
Local TV stations are the ones on the front lines of the FCC’s war against broadcasters. Despite the administration’s aversion to news organizations like CNN, the FCC’s reach applies only to over-the-air broadcasters, like local news affiliates, rather than cable networks.
“We’re just talking about over-the-air broadcasters using the public spectrum—that’s the basis of their threats,” says David B. Hoppe, founder and managing partner at San Francisco-based Gamma Law. “CNN is not within the jurisdiction of the FCC.”
Hoppe adds that the FCC is leaning on “the news distortion” policy—a rule that could kick in “if there is an intentional distortion of news concerning a significant event and that results in direct and immediate public harm, then, in that case, the FCC could exercise its authority to suspend or revoke a broadcaster’s license.”
That policy, however, is not a law. And as it relates to recent events that have sparked the administration’s fury? “The critical thing here is that the internal policy says that it has to be an intentional statement and cause direct and immediate public harm,” Hoppe says. “I just don’t see how that could apply in this particular case.”
Lee Rowland, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, says Carr and Trump are simply using the power of the federal government to silence dissent.
First Amendment concerns take center stage
“Chairman Carr’s threats are astonishingly unconstitutional and should have no purchase whatsoever. But unfortunately, we are living in a world where we have already seen broadcasters comply with unconstitutional demands precisely because they know that their licenses are at their mercy,” says Rowland, who has extensive experience as a First Amendment litigator, having worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice, among others.
“Everything that the chairman of the FCC says, and while implying that licenses are at stake, is inherently coercive and fundamentally undermines the basics of a free press,” she says.
As for what comes next? Rowland says the public needs to speak up, just as they did last year when the Trump administration pulled strings to dismiss late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. For example, Kimmel was suspended indefinitely in September 2025 by ABC for his comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, but then reinstated after massive public backlash against Disney, ABC’s parent company.
“Broadcasters don’t have much of a spine,” Rowland adds. “What comes next will be determined by the public.”