‘They only give me bad publicity’: Trump threatens to cancel licence of TV networks critical of him

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump suggested that TV networks that cover him “negatively” could be punished by his administration. The remarks from the American leader came a day after ABC pulled late-night show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ indefinitely.

While speaking to reporters on his flight back to the US from his state visit to the United Kingdom, Trump insisted that major US networks were against him “97 per cent” of the time. However, he did not offer any evidence to prove his assertion. Trump only ended his argument by saying that he read the statistic about it “somewhere”.

“Again, 97% negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states,” Trump said. “They give me only bad press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their licenses should be taken away.”

The president’s claim that the US TV networks need to be licensed by the government to operate is, however, incorrect. While the local TV stations in the US do require a license from the Federal Communications Commission, the body’s website states clearly that it does “not license TV or radio networks (such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox)”.

While speaking to the reporters, Trump supported ABC’s decision to cancel the show. Trump went on to state that Kimmel was “not a talented person” who “had very bad ratings”, The Guardian reported.

“Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk,” Trump told reporters on Thursday during his state visit to the United Kingdom. “They should have fired him a long time ago,” he added.

Why was Kimmel’s show cancelled?

In his monologue, Kimmel accused Maga of painting Tyler Robinson as “anything other than one of them”. “The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said in the Monday broadcast.

The late-night host has been frequently in the crosshairs of Trump and his administration. In the Monday show, he also criticised the flags being flown at half-staff in honour of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, and mocked Trump’s reaction to the shooting.

In the show, he spliced a clip of the president speaking with reporters about his reaction to Kirk’s death and redirected to talk about a ballroom being built at the White House. “He’s at the fourth stage of grief,” Kimmel said. “Construction. It’s demolition, construction.”

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a gold fish,” he averred. Representatives for Kimmel did not immediately release a statement on the matter.