Trump Demands FCC Punish Media Companies For His Sagging Polling

from the big-giant-babies dept

Our full-diapered mad king is at it again, this time urging FCC boss Brendan Carr to go after media companies for the crime of….simply pointing out his terrible, crashing polling numbers:

Trump last week also posted a long, rambling screed on his personal propaganda website, vowing that NBC News‘ Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker would be “reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment” for the crime of accurately pointing out Trump’s political endorsements don’t carry the weight they used to.

The comment Welker actually made, as is par for the course for corporate media shows like Meet the Press, was just about as timid as you can get, simply stating Trump endorsements have seen “mixed results”:

“He’s going to loom large over these midterms. There’s no doubt about that. He, of course, has endorsed a slate of candidates in the primaries. He’s had some mixed results, but most recently, his pick of Senator Darline Graham, of course, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was successful in her primary battle, so now she takes on Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina.”

The irony is that these are simply timid corporate media outlets that can often barely muster the courage to tell the truth (which, in this case, is that Trump’s endorsements will likely be toxic during the whole midterms). If Meet the Press offends Trump so deeply, it would be interesting to see his response to a healthy and vibrant media (if we had such a thing) firm in its conviction to the truth.

It goes without saying that the FCC has no authority to police accurate polling, journalism, or analysis of factual reality. Though overconfident Brendan Carr may certainly try.

As we’ve explored at length, the Trump FCC has been engaged in multiple overlapping manufactured investigations into ABC for a variety of “offenses,” ranging from comedian Jimmy Kimmel making fun of the president’s wife, to the morning talk show The View hosting politicians that Trumpism is clearly worried could erode Republican control of the Senate.

In the latter case, the Carr FCC appears to have colluded with right-wing local broadcast companies to falsely make it appear that a local ABC affiliate violated dated FCC “equal opportunity” rules by hosting Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico last February. Carr used this to try and justify an unprecedented early review of ABC’s eight local affiliate broadcast licenses.

ABC, in response, recently filed suit against the FCC for broad First Amendment violations, suggesting that as Trump’s health, political power, and influence wanes, the empty threats designed to chill media outlets’ desire to accurately criticize the president simply don’t carry the same weight.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, brendan carr, donald trump, fcc, free speech, kristen welker, polls