Donald Trump lashed out Thursday night after several major television networks refused to air his primetime speech promoting his false claims of election rigging, responding with a familiar threat: revoke their licenses.
The president erupted after NBC and ABC chose not to interrupt their regular primetime programming to broadcast his address, which centered on his long-running claims that U.S. elections have been plagued by widespread fraud. Instead, both networks streamed the speech online and said they would break into programming only if significant news developed.
Trump wasn’t happy.
Speaking from the White House East Room, he accused the networks of deliberately hiding the truth from the American people because they didn’t like what he planned to say.
“In a rare move, NBC and ABC Fake News have both said that they would not cover this speech,” Trump said. “They knew what it was about because they don’t like the topic because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it.”
He then escalated his attack, claiming the networks were part of a broader conspiracy.
“They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. They want to keep it going. They want to protect the radical left,” Trump said. “You can’t have a great country without free and fair elections.”
Then came the threat.
“Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses,” Trump declared, complaining that broadcasters use public airwaves worth billions of dollars while “paying nothing.”
Trump went on to repeat his false claims that American elections have been rigged and stolen, arguing that public trust has been destroyed and blaming both the media and the election system.
Ironically, even the networks that did carry portions of the speech weren’t buying what he was selling.
CBS, which aired a special report, warned viewers that many of Trump’s claims about election fraud were false before broadcasting most of the address.
Fox News also acknowledged after the speech that it could not independently verify several of the president’s allegations about election abuse.
CNN took an even more skeptical approach, choosing not to air the speech live and instead covering it with analysis and fact-checking. The network made the full speech available online but focused its television coverage on evaluating Trump’s claims rather than simply airing them uninterrupted.
CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen noted that the declassified intelligence documents Trump referenced did not support his central argument.
“None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results—including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost—were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way that would’ve changed the outcome,” Cohen said.
Trump has repeatedly threatened broadcast networks over coverage he dislikes, often suggesting their licenses should be revoked despite longstanding legal protections for news organizations and the fact that broadcast licenses are issued to local affiliate stations—not to the national television networks themselves.
Thursday night’s speech marked the latest chapter in Trump’s years-long campaign to cast doubt on election results while attacking media outlets that refuse to amplify his claims without scrutiny. This time, several of the country’s biggest networks decided they weren’t willing to hand him uninterrupted primetime airtime—and Trump responded by threatening to take them off the air altogether.
Watch the clip below:
Holy crap.
Trump just called for stripping NBC and ABC of their broadcast licenses because they wouldn't air his conspiracy-laden primetime rant live.
This is authoritarian madness. pic.twitter.com/79sKdzcqo3
— David Schwartz (@DavidSchwartz70) July 17, 2026
