FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said on Wednesday that ABC's decision not to broadcast President Trump's 16 July speech on election security live will be considered as part of the agency's ongoing early review of licences for ABC's eight owned-and-operated stations. Trump had criticised both ABC and NBC during the speech for declining to air it live, claiming this amounted to "fraud" and calling for their broadcast licences to be revoked, a threat he has made repeatedly in the past. Carr's comments raise fresh questions about whether the FCC, now led by a Trump appointee, will use its regulatory powers against broadcasters over editorial decisions it considers unfavourable to the president.

In his speech, Trump alleged US elections had been "rigged and stolen" and claimed China had illegally accessed millions of voter files to manipulate the 2018 and 2020 elections. Carr said broadcasters have a public-interest obligation to carry such presidential addresses and that the issue would likely be raised in the FCC's existing licence-review proceeding, which stems from an April order forcing ABC to reapply for its station licences early amid a separate probe into Disney/ABC's diversity, equity and inclusion practices. That April order followed Trump's call for Jimmy Kimmel to be sacked over a joke about Melania Trump, and Disney has since filed its renewal applications "under protest" while urging viewers to submit comments to the FCC. ABC declined to comment on Carr's latest remarks.