U.S. President Donald Trump speaks throughout a bilateral assembly with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia within the Oval Workplace of the White Home on Nov. 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee | Getty Pictures
President Donald Trump on Tuesday referred to as for ABC’s broadcast license to be revoked as he lashed out at one of many community’s reporters who requested him why he has chosen to not launch the federal government’s information on infamous intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I believe you’re a horrible reporter,” Trump mentioned within the Oval Workplace, saying he took difficulty with the ABC Information journalist’s “angle.”
“Persons are smart to your hoax,” the president mentioned. “Your crappy firm is likely one of the perpetrators. And I am going to inform you one thing … I believe the license needs to be taken away from ABC. As a result of your information is so faux and so mistaken.”
“We have now a fantastic commissioner … who ought to take a look at that,” he added, apparently referring to Federal Communications Fee chief Brendan Carr.
In September, Carr threatened ABC’s license over remarks that one of many community’s late-night discuss present hosts, Jimmy Kimmel, made in regards to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“We will do that the straightforward means or the exhausting means,” mentioned Carr, whose company controls media firms’ broadcast licenses, in a podcast interview. “These firms can discover methods to vary conduct, to take motion, frankly, on Kimmel, or you already know, there’s going to be extra work for the FCC forward.”
Hours later, ABC and Nexstar Media Group, which hosts ABC-affiliated native stations, mentioned they had been indefinitely pre-empting “Jimmy Kimmel Reside!” The present returned to air a few week later following waves of backlash towards ABC and its mother or father Disney.
Trump’s offended remarks Tuesday got here shortly earlier than the Home of Representatives was set to vote on a invoice to compel the Division of Justice to launch all of its information on the deceased financier.
Trump has railed towards Democrats over their deal with the Epstein information, calling the matter a “hoax” and urging his allies to drop the matter. Trump and Epstein had been buddies, however had a falling out years earlier than Epstein’s 2019 dying whereas in jail on federal intercourse trafficking expenses.
However the president has been unable to shake off his hyperlinks to the intercourse offender — which grew extra seen final week, when Democrats on the Home Oversight Committee launched emails exhibiting Epstein discussing Trump. In a single e-mail from 2019, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew in regards to the women.”
On Sunday night time, because the Epstein invoice’s probabilities of passage appeared to rise, Trump out of the blue reversed course and urged his GOP allies to help the measure.
However Trump doesn’t want to attend for Congress to go a invoice; he might order the DOJ to launch extra Epstein information unilaterally, information retailers have reported.
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