Ajit Pai, in First Remarks After Trump Tweets, Says FCC Can’t Revoke Broadcast Licenses Based on News Content
WASHINGTON — FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that the agency lacked authority to revoke the license of a broadcast station based on the the content of a newscast, in his first comments on the topic since President Donald Trump’s tweets last week.
Trump tweeted attacks on NBC News’ reporting and wrote, “Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked. Not fair to public!”
Pai, appearing at an event sponsored by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, did not directly address Trump but said that the “FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment.”
He said that the agency “does not have the authority to revoke the license of a broadcast station based on the content” of a news cast.
The FCC grants licenses not to broadcast networks, but broadcast stations. It regularly reviews the licenses, typically examining a station’s commitment to programming and activities in the public interest.
But Trump’s tweets generated alarm among First Amendment advocates, who said that they could have a calling effect on freedom of speech. Pai did not respond to them until the Wednesday event, as some of his fellow commissioners called on him to respond. Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic appointee, said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that “history will not be kind of silence.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Pai on Monday asking him to respond to Trump’s tweets and asking him to commit that the First Amendment “remains a cornerstone of our democracy.”
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