FCC Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over Iran War Coverage

The comment from Brendan Carr came on the heels of a social media message from President Trump criticizing the news media’s coverage of the war with Iran.

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.

As the war entered its third week, Mr. Carr accused broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions” in a social media post and warned them to “correct course before their license renewals come up.”

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he said.

Mr. Carr shared a Truth Social post by President Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story published by The Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was “intentionally misleading.” He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war.

Dow Jones & Company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a similar vein, delivered a lengthy complaint about CNN’s coverage of the war in the Middle East during a news conference Friday, saying that he looked forward to the news network being controlled by the billionaire David Ellison.

Mr. Ellison, who has a friendly relationship with Mr. Trump, is the owner of Paramount Skydance, which is seeking to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion. That deal, if it closes, will bring CNN under Mr. Ellison’s purview. He is best known in the journalism world for shaking up leadership at CBS News, where he has installed more conservative journalists.

Since taking over the F.C.C. chairmanship at the start of Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Carr has regularly raised the possibility of seizing station licenses over various programming decisions at the major television networks, whose owned and affiliated stations need F.C.C. licenses in order to operate.

But long term experts in media regulation have said that the process for taking away station licenses is involved and exceedingly onerous by design. The pre-eminent national communications law prohibits the government from using regulations to censor.

Democratic lawmakers and free-speech watchdogs were quick to condemn Mr. Carr’s threat as a violation of the First Amendment. On social media, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called it “straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” while Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said that “when our nation is at war, it is critical that the press is free to report without government interference.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which advocates for free-speech rights, said in a statement that Mr. Carr’s tenure as F.C.C. chairman “has been marked by his shameless willingness to bully and threaten our free press.” It called his latest post “shocking — and dangerous.”

Mr. Carr’s comments on Saturday follow a pattern he has charted, which critics say is dangerous and positions him as a national censor.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was temporarily pulled off the air after Mr. Carr took issue with some of the ABC host’s comments, and Mr. Carr has suggested the F.C.C. should investigate the network’s daytime talk show “The View” over its political content. And in February, Stephen Colbert blasted Mr. Carr and said that his network, CBS, had barred him from airing an interview with a Democratic candidate in a U.S. Senate race because of new guidance by the F.C.C. about equal airtime for political candidates.

The Trump administration’s messaging against the news media comes as polls show it faces low public support for the war and it tries to thwart Iran’s efforts to block a vital oil route amid skyrocketing global oil prices.

Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.

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