Trump Wants Broadcast Licenses of Networks That Didn’t Air His Speech Revoked

White House communications director Steven Cheung called out NBC and ABC News for not airing the president’s address.

President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the East Room of the White House on July 16, 2026 in Washington, DC. Saul Loeb/Pool - Getty Images

President Donald Trump said on July 16 that U.S. television networks that did not air his primetime address on election integrity should have their licenses revoked.

Trump said during his address that both NBC and ABC News had said they “would not cover the speech” in what the president described as a “rare move” by broadcast networks.

“They knew what it was about because of the fact that they don’t like the topic, because they know how corrupt our system is, and they don’t want to reveal it,” the president said.

“Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses. They use our public, multi-billion-dollar in value airwaves for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting.”

A spokesperson for ABC News said on July 16 that the network would run Trump’s speech on its ABC News Live streaming platform and ABC News ​Radio, but not on its broadcast channel.

NBC News also aired the president’s speech on its streaming platform. The network did not return a request for comment by publication time.

In his address, Trump announced the declassification of information that he said reveals large-scale Chinese hacking of American voter information, saying that China obtained 220 million voter records during the 2020 election.

The president also detailed the findings of a Homeland Security Department review that found 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in federal elections. Trump said he had ordered the agency to notify states and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from their voter rolls.

White House communications director Steven Cheung called out NBC and ABC News for not airing the president’s address and encouraged viewers to watch it on the White House’s platform instead.

“NBC and ABC don’t want you to hear the truth. All they want to do is hide the facts from YOU. Tune in @WhiteHouse at 9:00pm EDT, where we always get bigger ratings than any of the networks,” Cheung said in a post on X.

Trump had previously called for the broadcast licenses of ABC News and NBC to be revoked over what he described as “unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.” He also accused the networks of being “an arm of the Democrat Party.”

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in April ordered an early review of license renewals for eight Disney-owned ABC television stations. The FCC was also looking into whether ABC’s daytime talk ​show “The View” violated federal rules requiring broadcast stations to provide equal airtime to all political party candidates.

Nathan Worcester and Reuters contributed to this report.