Trump Says Negative Coverage of Him Is 'Not Allowed'

President Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One Thursday after his UK state visit, floated the idea of punishing television networks for what he described as overwhelmingly negative coverage of his presidency, the Guardian reports. Trump claimed major networks in the US are "97% against me"—without offering evidence or clarifying how that statistic was calculated, saying only that he read it "someplace." He claimed that, despite this supposed bias, he prevailed in "all seven swing states" during his election, and suggested perhaps networks' licenses should be revoked in response to their coverage.

However, Trump's remarks misrepresented the regulatory reality: While local TV stations must obtain licenses from the Federal Communications Commission, major networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox are not licensed by the FCC. The FCC itself states that it does not license TV or radio networks, only individual stations. Trump, however, insisted that "When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do—that license, they're not allowed to do that," Politico reports. "They're an arm of the Democratic Party," he continued.

Trump also weighed in on ABC's recent suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, asserting Kimmel was sidelined due to poor ratings and remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk. "He should have been fired a long time ago," Trump said, adding that Kimmel "was not a talented person" and "was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else."

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In reality, Kimmel's show averaged 1.77 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025 and performed strongly in the key 18-49 demographic, even outpacing Stephen Colbert in that segment, despite an 11% decline in recent viewership. Kimmel also maintains a significant online presence, with more than 20 million YouTube subscribers. Earlier Thursday, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said "we'll see how this plays out" when asked if the supposedly independent agency would go after NBC's late-night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. "We're reinvigorating the FCC's enforcement of public interest," he said.