Trump urges FCC to go after Rev. Al Sharpton, NBC's license

Karu F. Daniels, New York Daily News on Oct 6, 2025

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On the heels of Jimmy Kimmel's suspension at ABC, President Donald Trump is now taking aim at MSNBC host the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The president called for the Federal Communications Commission to “look into” NBC’s broadcasting license after the civil rights activist and broadcaster featured Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Sunday’s edition of “Politics Nation.”

On his Truth Social platform, Trump shared a decades-old image of Sharpton and recounted their long history as New York City acquaintances-turned-political adversaries.

“I knew Al Sharpton for many years, not that it matters, but he was a major ‘TRUMP’ fan,” he wrote. “He’d ask me to go to his fake Rallies all the time, because I brought BIG Crowds, and he couldn’t get anybody to come without me.”

Trump continued: “Then he did the Tawana Brawley Hoax, one of the worst Low Level Scams in History, and that set him back, BIG TIME!”

That comment alluded to a 1987 controversial scandal when Sharpton served as an adviser to an African American 15-year-old who accused four white men of abducting and raping her in upstate New York.

The Republican Party leader then lashed out at Comcast CEO Brian Roberts — misidentifying him as the “Chairman of Fake News NBC” — and alleging that he gave Sharpton a hosting job on what Trump called “one of the Lowest Rated Shows in Television History.”

He added: “Roberts is afraid to take him off because it wouldn’t be ‘Politically Correct.’”

MSNBC and NBC are two distinct TV brands although they both until recently fell under the umbrella of the same parent company, NBCUniversal, which is in turn owned by Comcast. In August, MSNBC announced that it and several other NBCUniversal cable channels would spin off into a new media company called VERSANT. MSNBC will also adopt a new name and logo, becoming My Source News Opinion World (or MS NOW) and losing the NBC peacock.

Sharpton’s “Politics Nation” has aired on MSNBC since 2011.

“This is just one of the many reasons that the Federal Communications Commission should look into the license of NBC, which shows almost exclusively positive Democrat content,” Trump wrote. “Likewise, ABC Fake News — About the same thing, 97 percent negative to Republicans!”

Sharpton, who calls out the president during his weekly National Action Network rally in Harlem and on his weekly, nationally syndicated “Sunday Morning” radio show, hasn’t made any comments about his former pal’s threats.

Trump’s urging of the FCC to take aim at Sharpton follows its Chairman Brendan Carr coming under fire for using “mafioso” tactics against Kimmel, which prompted ABC’s parent company Disney to temporarily pull his late-night talk show from air after comments he made about conservatives” reactions to the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

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