Donald Trump has increased his “fake news” attacks on ABC and NBC as the FCC investigates lifting the Reagan-era cap on how many TV stations one company can own.
On Sunday, the president shared an article that MAGA-friendly media organization Newsmax originally posted last Wednesday.
In the report, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy used his own network last Tuesday to warn that the FCC, under Trump-appointed Brendan Carr, was empowering the major TV networks to expand their reach which could have political consequences.
Currently, no company is allowed to own enough stations to reach more than 39 percent of U.S. households. Since June, the FCC under Carr has been revising whether to keep, increase, or eliminate the TV ownership cap initially established by President Ronald Reagan.
The 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act set the current figure of 39 percent.
“Reagan understood if you have left-wing networks like ABC, NBC and CBS – or groups like Nexstar today controlling every local station and their local news — Republicans would have little chance to win in state and federal elections,” Ruddy said on Tuesday.
That concept belatedly fired up Trump, who seemingly laid down the law to Carr on Truth Social on Sunday.
“If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to “enlarge,” I would not be happy,“ Trump wrote. ”ABC & NBC, in particular, are a disaster – A VIRTUAL ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. They should be viewed as an illegal campaign to the Radical Left. NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS.“
Trump had his own suggestion for the cap, noting, “If anything, make them SMALLER!”
The president did not, however, mention CBS. Trump successfully sued CBS’ parent media group Paramount for $16 million in July, after he was unhappy with the editing of a 60 Minutes episode. The 79-year-old has praised the Skydance Media founder, MAGA-friendly David Ellison.
Ellison also installed conservative journalist Bari Weiss as the new head of CBS News, a move that also pleased Trump.
The Truth Social post also did not refer to Nexstar Media Group, the local TV group who are in the process of a $6.2 billion merger with rival Tegna. If successful, that would see them reach 80 percent of the U.S., way over the current 39 percent limit for one owner.
Nexstar filed with the FCC last week to approve the merger.
Nexstar’s founder and CEO Perry Sook said “While waiting for the FCC to complete its rule-making process, we submitted waiver requests to bypass the major barriers that prevent us from competing fairly—including with legacy media and Big Tech— massive entities with vast resources that afford them enormous influence that extends into every pocket, purse and backpack of Americans everywhere.”
Ruddy called the Nexstar merger a violation of FCC law, and tellingly noted it would be a “disaster” for conservatives if local news stations are dominated by one owner.
“If people in New York were deciding what the local news in Pittsburgh was or in Detroit or in Cleveland… it’s a very dangerous thing what the FCC is promulgating, and I think could be a disaster for conservatives around the country.”
Last week Ruddy said he was shocked Carr and Trump may be planning to change the cap rules to benefit Nexstar, a network he viewed as anti-MAGA.
Ruddy said in decades of knowing Trump he had never heard him call to lift the ownership cap or give big media companies more reach.
“He’s made it very clear that he would like the media to be held accountable. Giving ABC, CBS, NBC a free visa to basically buy stations in every market in the country- I, don’t think, is a very Trumpian idea,” Ruddy said. “And I think that had the FCC done this 10 years ago, Donald Trump would have never been elected president.”
However, Trump’s Sunday Truth Social post suggests the president is at least concerned about ABC and NBC benefiting from ownership changes.
The Daily Beast has contacted the FCC, ABC, Nexstar and NBC for comment.
Last week, Carr said the FCC had not made a decision on changes to the cap, which will hold up the Nexstar merge.
“I’ve not made a final decision in those proceedings,” Carr, 46, said. “We’re still looking at the record.”
Carr did add that one potential benefit of changing the current 39 percent ownership cap could be to “help balance some of the power between local TV stations, again, which aren’t necessarily owned by the national programmers and the national programmers themselves.”
However FCC commissioner Anna Gomez said she did not believe the body has the authority to waive the statutory 39 percent cap. “The cap is in the statute. It does not give us the authority to waive,” she said.
“We don’t waive statutes.”
Gomez also weighed in on Trump’s criticism of an ABC reporter and latest call to cancel Jimmy Kimmel last week, noting that networks including ABC, CBS and NBC do not actually hold FCC licenses; they are held by individual television stations.
The only action, as demonstrated by Carr temporarily pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! earlier this year, is to concentrate on local affiliate stations that are regulated by the FCC.
“National networks that the administration is targeting are not licensed by the FCC, but the local broadcasters are,” Gomez said.
“And if the FCC were to take the unprecedented step to revoke a license on the grounds that reporting by a network is unfavorable to this administration, it would run headlong into the First Amendment and fail in court.”
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