Trump calls for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked for not airing his ‘election interference’ speech

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

President Donald Trump called for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked for not airing his Thursday night speech about “election interference,” accusing the networks of being “part of a plot.”

ABC and NBC covered the speech on their online streaming platforms, with both networks airing special reports summarizing Trump’s remarks once the president concluded, but he still railed against the news outlets for not airing it on their regularly scheduled broadcasts.

“In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech,” Trump said in the evening address. “They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason…Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”

White House communications director Steven Cheung also joined in the attack. “Cowards. NBC and ABC don’t want you to hear the truth,” he said in a post on X. “All they want to do is hide the facts from YOU.”

NBC News NOW, the network’s streaming service, carried the speech live, as did ABC on its ABC News Live platform.

President Donald Trump called for NBC and ABC to have their licenses revoked for not airing his Thursday night speech about ‘election interference’ (Reuters)

Fox News aired the full speech live, but CNN did not, with Kaitlan Collins explaining to viewers that the network would be “monitoring” what the president said in order to fact check the address.

“We’ll be monitoring what the president says tonight, as we always do, but aren’t taking it live, given the president has a well-documented history of saying blatantly false things about elections,” Collins said.

In the rare primetime address, which lasted approximately 23 minutes, Trump accused unnamed national security officials of hiding information about the security of America’s elections and alleged Chinese efforts to interfere in the 2020 election in which he lost.

Citing no hard evidence, the president claimed American elections are vulnerable “to hacking, exploitation, and foreign interference” and accused the People’s Republic of China of carrying out “the largest compromise of election data in history” by acquiring election data — much of which is commercially available for purchase by political campaigns and other interested parties.

Toward the end of the speech, he launched into the familiar attack against the networks and the media.

“They knew what it was about, because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is and they don’t want to reveal it,” he said of ABC and NBC.

More follows