{"id":875,"date":"2026-07-10T10:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=875"},"modified":"2026-07-10T10:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:39:09","slug":"trumps-fcc-pressure-on-the-view-could-backfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=875","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s FCC pressure on \u201cThe View\u201d could backfire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, his long-simmering war on liberal media has boiled over, with the president\u2019s Federal Communications Commission even threatening broadcast licenses over perceived bias against Republicans. Although this campaign against programs like \u201cThe View\u201d and \u201cThe Late Show\u201d might prove a salve for conservatives\u2019 feelings of aggrievement, it\u2019s built on legally shaky ground, and could come to haunt the vast array of conservative broadcasts across the country.<\/p>\n

Read more Bonnie Tyler\u2019s anthems will live forever<\/a><\/p>\n

This week, ABC\u2019s morning talk show, \u201cThe View,\u201d has once again been thrust into the spotlight because of the FCC\u2019s ongoing battle with the media, which is based on a little-known policy called the \u201cequal time rule,\u201d a 1930s era broadcaster regulation that requires programs to give equivalent time to a candidate\u2019s opponent if they permit a candidate for elected office to appear on their broadcast. If John F. Kennedy gets to speak for two minutes, then Richard Nixon gets to speak for two minutes.<\/p>\n

The FCC\u2019s investigation into \u201cThe View\u201d became publicly known in Feb. 2026, after the program interviewed the now Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, James Talarico, with the agency alleging that \u201cThe View,\u201d as it exists today, would not qualify for what\u2019s known as a \u201cbona fide news exemption\u201d to the equal time rule. Other programs that enjoy this exemption include \u201cThe Howard Stern Show\u201d and \u201cEntertainment Tonight,\u201d for example.<\/p>\n

This exemption to the equal time rule has historically been extended to daytime and late-night television programs. \u201cThe View\u201d itself has broadcast under this exemption since 2002. Trump\u2019s FCC, under chairman Brendan Carr, has attempted to govern with a far narrower interpretation of this exemption and one that excludes \u201cThe View\u201d and potentially many other programs like it.<\/p>\n

The issue has evolved into a legal dispute between ABC, owned by Disney, and the FCC, over whether the show qualifies for the exception. And so far, the public comments on the issue have overwhelmingly supported \u201cThe View\u201d in this battle.<\/p>\n

However, Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, told Salon that the legal ground on which the dispute with \u201cThe View\u201d is built is not as solid as it might first appear.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be clear that there are currently no statutes, rules or regulations that require \u2018fair and balanced\u2019 news coverage, and therefore no permissible role for the federal government to force media outlets to offer a diversity of viewpoints or provide a platform for responses to speech on important public matters,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThat said, the FCC and the president are leaning heavily on media \u2014 especially media critical of the current administration \u2014 to do just that, or to refrain from critical speech entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt should be clear that there are currently no statutes, rules or regulations that require \u2018fair and balanced\u2019 news coverage, and therefore no permissible role for the federal government to force media outlets to offer a diversity of viewpoints or provide a platform for responses to speech on important public matters.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

James Speta, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University, told Salon that, in his view, there is a strong constitutional argument against the equal time rule generally, given that the rule has been historically protected by the inherent scarcity of broadcast licenses due to the limited frequencies available. Septa explained that Disney has made a few arguments along these lines before the FCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first argument is because of these changes the whole equal time rules are unconstitutional, and the second thing that they argue is that even if the equal time rules are constitutional, they\u2019re unconstitutional without an exemption for bona fide news coverage. And then the third thing they argue is that the way the FCC is going to try to enforce its view of what bona fide news coverage is is unconstitutional, because the FCC is discriminating between viewpoints or discriminating on the basis of content,\u201d Speta said. \u201cMy view is that those are all very good arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speta said he believes that these constitutional arguments should be a \u201cslam dunk,\u201d yet was reluctant to predict whether or not courts would smile upon these arguments were this issue to be tried. His reluctance stems from a divergence between what regular people take as a good argument and what courts take as a strong argument.<\/p>\n

Dan Greenberg, a senior legal fellow at the Cato Institute\u2019s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, had similar skepticism about how courts might act, citing Turner v. FCC, a 1990s case that affirmed the constitutionality of regulations derived from the scarcity of broadcast licenses, despite the rise of cable television at that point.<\/p>\n

Read more Anti-lobbyist Republican benefited from lobbyists for years<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that you can read all of these old decisions as endorsing the proposition that the court has decided that this is really not a very strong argument,\u201d Greenberg said. \u201cSo it seems to me that there is precedent of a kind that says scarcity concerns have and do operate, and are going to continue to operate with respect to broadcast media, even in the era of widespread prevalence of non-broadcast media like cable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attached to the formal actions taken by the FCC are the related issues of informal enforcement actions. For example, Carr has threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters running programming critical of the president\u2019s war against Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,\u201d Carr said in a post on X in March. \u201cAnd frankly, changing course is in their own business interests since trust in legacy media has now fallen to an all time low of just 9% and are ratings disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legal term for indirect censorship that stems from, for example, threatening a broadcast license is \u201cjawboning,\u201d and on this point, the law is more clear. Speta explained that the precedent stems from National Rifle Association v. Vullo, in which the court held that the government cannot use informal tactics, like thinly-veiled threats of selective enforcement or demands for cooperation, to coerce private actors. Notably, it has not been adjudicated whether or not the FCC has crossed the line into jawboning.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also clear that, if these actions by the FCC go forward, it could come back to bite conservative broadcast media, which has been spared from the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on the press.<\/p>\n

Wayne Unger, a professor of law at Quinnipiac University, told Salon that \u201cThe Trump Administration\u2019s selective enforcement \u2014 whether it\u2019s the equal time rule or any other matter \u2014 can easily be flipped around onto the Republicans and conservative media should the Democrats win the White House in 2028.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unger used the example of Citizens United, a conservative organization that successfully sued in 2008 to overturn the electioneering communications ban established in the McCain-Feingold Act on constitutional grounds. Their motivation was so that they could advertise their film, \u201cHillary: The Movie,\u201d a film critical of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

Later, in 2016, the Trump campaign attempted to block the release of \u201cTrump: What\u2019s the Deal\u201d a critical investigation into Trump\u2019s business career. He failed because of the precedent set by the Citizens United case. Again in 2024, the Trump campaign unsuccessfully attempted to block \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d a negative biographical depiction of the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, you could say that Republican-led litigation came back to haunt the Republicans in future elections,\u201d Unger said. \u201cThe same will be true regarding the Trump Administration\u2019s other efforts, too. In June, Trump prevailed in Trump v. Slaughter, which overturned a case that prevented presidents from firing the heads of independent agencies without cause. Now that a president can freely terminate the heads of independent agencies, I\u2019d expect the Democrats to exercise this new rule once they return to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unger concluded that in the event a future administration attempts to enforce the equal time rule against conservative broadcasters, he expects conservative groups to make similar arguments against the rule on constitutional grounds, all \u201cwhile decrying the selective enforcement even though the Trump Administration is doing the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Taylor, Travis and the cone of silence<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leaning on liberal media sets a precedent conservative media can\u2019t abide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[725,1203,1204,67],"class_list":["post-875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-the-view","tag-brendan-carr","tag-fcc","tag-the-late-show"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s FCC pressure on \u201cThe View\u201d could backfire - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=875\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s FCC pressure on \u201cThe View\u201d could backfire - 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