Trump Enters Second Year Of Second Term Still Suing And Threatening The Licenses Of Networks That Cover Him, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That Broadcasters Could Report On The President Without Hearing From His Lawyers

WASHINGTON. Entering the second year of his second term, President Donald J. Trump this week continued his administration's signature press initiative, maintaining the active lawsuits, license threats, and regulatory inquiries that aides confirmed have now made it functionally impossible for a national broadcaster to air coverage of the President without subsequently hearing from his attorneys.

The effort, which spans the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Justice, and the President's personal legal team, builds on a productive first year. Over that span, CBS parent Paramount paid 16 million dollars to settle a suit over a "60 Minutes" edit days before its merger reached the FCC, ABC paid 15 million dollars to resolve a defamation claim, and Meta paid 25 million dollars to close out a case a federal judge had already dismissed. "The President views each of these as a template," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the strategy works best when companies with business before the government understand it without being told. "A network covers him, the coverage displeases him, a complaint materializes at the FCC, and a merger they happen to need is sitting on the chairman's desk. Everyone arrives at the number on their own."

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who in the administration's opening days reinstated previously dismissed complaints against ABC, NBC, and CBS, has kept the agency's inquiries into the major broadcasters open into 2026, a posture officials described as "leaving the light on." Congress, at the President's urging, separately eliminated federal funding for NPR and PBS during the first year, a step the administration characterized as removing the government from the business of speech at the same moment it was expanding the government's role in reviewing it.

The President, who has described unfavorable coverage as "fake news" and repeatedly suggested that networks airing it should lose their broadcast licenses, has extended the list of defendants well beyond the major broadcasters. It now includes a newspaper pollster whose pre-election survey showed him trailing and the volunteer board of the Pulitzer Prizes, resolving the long-standing concern that a private journalism award could be decided by people other than the President.

Media attorneys noted that the design is quietly self-enforcing: with each settlement the going rate grows clearer, and the number of outlets willing to test it grows smaller. First Amendment scholars described the approach as constitutionally novel, observing that the government had found a way to discipline the press without passing a single law restricting it, an achievement they called "efficient."

At press time, three network executives with pending federal business were reportedly racing one another to apologize for stories that had not yet aired.