Trump’s FCC started another media war. But it has lost before and can lose again.

This is an adapted excerpt from the April 28 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”

You may remember when, in the run-up to the 2024 election, Donald Trump sued “60 Minutes” on the premise that the show had committed “partisan and unlawful acts of election interference” after it aired an edited interview with Kamala Harris.

The Trump team accused the network of interfering in the election simply because it didn’t air the conversation in its entirety. In the end, they sued CBS and ended up with a $16 million settlement payment.

This weekend, “60 Minutes” did exactly the same thing — except this time with an interview with Trump.

Norah O’Donnell interviewed Trump for 40 minutes, then producers edited that interview down to just 13 minutes. Now if that doesn’t sound all that scandalous to you, it’s because it’s not. That is how lots and lots of TV interviews work, especially for long-form interview programs like “60 Minutes.”

The only scandal here is that Trump pretended Harris’ interview was a scandal, all to threaten “60 Minutes” and its parent company, CBS. At one point, he even called for the network to lose its broadcast license.

It was clearly an attempt to bully the network into covering him more positively and his perceived enemies more negatively. And now we are seeing that bullying dynamic in play once again.

Trump’s Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday ordered a review of all broadcast station licenses owned by ABC. While the agency says the review is about the network’s diversity and inclusion policies, it also comes just a day after Trump called for late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over yet another pretend scandal manufactured by the president as an excuse to try to get rid of someone who criticizes him.

As alarming as it is to see Trump try to silence his perceived enemies again and again, it is important to remember we have been here before, which means we also know that pushback works.

When Trump tried to get Kimmel fired last year, he didn’t succeed. After ABC suspended the comedian, people all across the country started boycotting the network and its parent company, Disney. As a result, the company reversed course and brought Kimmel back.

It’s important to hold onto that lesson because with more troubling examples of Trump interfering in the media, it will come in handy.

For example, on Monday, we got some major news about the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, which, among other things, would put CNN under the control of Trump allies David and Larry Ellison. One of them, according to reporting from The Guardian, discussed firing CNN hosts the president doesn’t like with Trump himself, while trying to get the government’s approval for the deal.

But it turns out it is not just the Ellisons who are involved in that deal. In a filing to the FCC, Paramount expects 49.5% of the new merged company to be owned by foreigners, including 15% by a Saudi investment fund, 12% by an Emirati investment fund, and nearly 10% by a Qatari investment fund.

While these would be “non-voting” shares, it would be the most an American broadcast TV company has ever been owned by foreign investors.

As alarming as that is, it also appears to be a potentially fruitful opportunity for pushback.

Earlier this year, the FCC, under Brendan Carr, approved a merger between two companies to allow them to own a whopping 265 local TV stations, reaching 80% of the country. 

The only problem was an FCC rule that bars any one company from owning that many stations. The agency has never allowed any one company to own half that many stations. But it approved the merger anyway, right after some of the stations pulled Kimmel’s show from their airwaves.

But that is not the end of the story.

Last month, eight state attorneys general sued, alleging that, among other things, the merger would violate FCC rules. And now that merger is on hold, after it was temporarily frozen by a federal judge in early April as the lawsuit plays out.

That’s proof that pushback can work.

And it turns out that, in the case of Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros., they are also asking for an exception to an FCC rule. The rule in question is that the agency only allows for foreign investors to own 25% of any American broadcast TV company, unless they determine it serves the public interest.

Remember, Paramount told the FCC in a filing that if the merger with Warner Bros. goes through, the resulting company will be owned 49.5% by foreign investors, or nearly twice as much as the agency is supposed to allow.

Even if Trump and his FCC approve that exception — which, let’s be honest, they probably will — that feels like a weak spot certainly worth pushing on.

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post Trump’s FCC started another media war. But it has lost before and can lose again. appeared first on MS NOW.