Representative Buddy Carter, a Republican from Georgia, has formally requested that the Federal Communications Commission review whether ABC, NBC, and CBS violated their obligations to serve the public interest when they either declined to air live or cut away from President Donald Trump's primetime address on July 16. In a letter sent Monday and first obtained by Fox News Digital, Carter asked FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to examine the networks' decisions and consider whether those actions should affect their broadcast license renewals.
Carter expressed serious concerns about the networks' handling of the address, arguing that the public airwaves should inform the American people rather than be used by corporate executives to decide which matters of national importance citizens are permitted to hear. He emphasized that broadcasters may criticize, analyze, or fact-check the president's statements, but refusing to air a major presidential address because executives disagree with its content raises serious concerns that they intended to keep Americans in the dark about potential foreign interference in elections.
The congressman also argued that Americans should have been allowed to make up their own minds about the content of the speech. Regardless of political affiliation, he said, the American people deserved to hear the information directly from their president and judge it for themselves. Instead, ABC and NBC declined to broadcast the speech on their primary television networks, while CBS cut away before the president completed his remarks. Carter added that airing the speech on streaming services was not an adequate substitute for free, over-the-air television, particularly for Americans without reliable broadband access.
President Trump's primetime address, which lasted more than 20 minutes, focused on what he described as shocking vulnerabilities in the nation's election infrastructure. During the speech, he called for the revocation of ABC and NBC's broadcast licenses, accusing the networks of being part of a plot to continue what he termed a fraud and protect the radical left. He announced the immediate declassification and release of critical intelligence documents that he said revealed vulnerabilities in the election system.
According to the White House, the documents released during the address included files related to alleged voting system vulnerabilities, China's alleged acquisition of U.S. voter data, a Michigan voter registration investigation, and noncitizens on state voter rolls. Fox News Digital could not independently verify the contents of the documents or the president's claims. Trump argued that no country can be great without fair and honest elections and that the information had been covered up and hidden from the American people for many years.
ABC News and NBC News streamed the president's speech on their digital platforms before later airing special reports summarizing his remarks on their broadcast networks. CBS News initially aired analysis before joining the speech several minutes after it began, then cut away after Trump criticized ABC and NBC. Carter said the issues raised during the address warranted live broadcast coverage, adding that the allegations concern both election integrity and national security.
The letter follows a broader pattern of tension between the Trump administration and major media networks over coverage of presidential addresses. The FCC has not yet publicly responded to Carter's request, and Fox News Digital reached out to the FCC, ABC News, NBC News, and CBS News for comment. The outcome of the review could have implications for the networks' broadcast licenses, which are subject to renewal by the commission based on public interest standards.
