It Didn't Start With Donald Trump. Presidents Have a Long History of Using the FCC to Silence Their Critics.

by William L. Anderson, Mises Wire, 09/25/2025 - The president was angry at the press, claiming that journalists were spreading “poisonous propaganda” about him. Using the Federal Communications Commission as a political weapon, he threatened the licenses of broadcast firms that employed people critical of him.

While Donald Trump likely is the first person to come to mind here, the opening sentences are not about him. They are, instead, about the spiritual standard bearer of the Democratic Party—Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, while president, FDR used the powers of his office to punish, bully, and intimidate print and broadcast journalists that dared to disagree with the New York patrician.

Roosevelt, unfortunately, did not simply engage in actions that violated the First Amendment to the Constitution, but he did so without shame, pushing the boundaries of what presidents could do when openly going against the letter and spirit of the law.

.... In the early 1960s, President Kennedy’s administration launched one of the most successful censorship campaigns in U.S. history. The subjects of Kennedy’s ire were conservative radio broadcasters, who constantly attacked the administration’s policy proposals. Worried about his reelection chances, Kennedy instructed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to target the offending broadcasters with tax audits and heightened regulatory scrutiny. Within a few years, this censorship campaign had driven conservative broadcasters off hundreds of radio stations; it would be more than a decade before the end of the Fairness Doctrine enabled the resurgence of political talk radio. ... The Kennedy administration used the IRS and the FCC, implementing the Fairness Doctrine as a weapon against the broadcasters. After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson continued his predecessor’s policies against broadcast opposition using the same federal agencies.

... Not surprisingly, Richard Nixon also declared war on the media, but was unsuccessful. Donald Trump wants to do the same, as we have seen with his moves against ABC and the Jimmy Kimmel show following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And, not surprisingly, Trump’s moves have faced opposition in many quarters and correctly so. However, as bad as his actions might be, we should remember their context and the history of using federal agencies to attack political enemies. Like it or not, Democrats tend to be more successful, as we have seen in this article, because their actions are more likely to receive favorable legacy media coverage, given that Democrats tend to dominate the leadership of the academic and media sectors.

This does not change the underlying problem, however, which is that federal taxing and regulatory agencies are not and never have been politically neutral. These agencies do not need “reform,” but rather should be abolished altogether. (read it all)

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