Trump calls on FCC to ‘look into’ Al Sharpton in latest attack on media and free speech

President Donald Trump called out the Rev. Al Sharpton in a social media post, seemingly aiming at his administration’s latest target in what has become a pattern of attacking free speech.

On Sunday evening, Trump took to Truth Social to attack Sharpton for his political views and went as far as to call for the Federal Communications Commission, chaired by his appointee Brendan Carr, to “look into” Sharpton’s MSNBC weekend show “PoliticsNation.”

“I knew Al Sharpton for many years, not that it matters, but he was a major “TRUMP” fan. 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 wrote, along with an image of Sharpton from back in the day before he lost nearly 200 pounds.

Trump, a former Democrat, and Sharpton have a decades-long relationship as New Yorkers and have been best described as “frenemies.”

Referring to the 1987 headline rape story of New York teenager Tawana Brawley, who falsely told police she was kidnapped and raped by four white men, 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! “

Sharpton helped to bring national attention to the Brawley case, as he has done for countless others over the past four decades. The longtime civil rights activist, who is now the founder and president of the National Action Network, said he believed Brawley’s story. He has refuted claims that he conspired to cover up Brawley’s lie or make money from the ordeal.

“Now looking 35 years later, those that said that she come up with where did she or anybody make money on it. We had just done the Howard Beach case–why would I go and cover up anything?” Sharpton told Fox 5 New York in 2022. “I believed what the lawyers told [me]. I never asked a 15-year-old girl what happened…I believed the lawyers and I believed what was said, and I believed she deserved her day in court.”

In his Truth Social post, Trump also called out Sharpton’s employer, writing, “Then he got to know Brian Roberts, Chairman of Fake News NBC, who gave him what would become one of the Lowest Rated Shows in Television History. Roberts is afraid to take him off because it wouldn’t be ‘Politically Correct.’”

Attempting to press his presidential thumb on the scale of government and free speech, Trump added, “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. Likewise, ABC Fake News — About the same thing, 97% negative to Republicans!”

Sharpton’s “PoliticsNation” airs on MSNBC, which is being rebranded as MS Now, a news network independent of NBC News and Comcast. Sharpton has been a vocal critic of Trump’s policies, including his efforts to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion, which he warned was a “prelude” to Trump’s threats “to take over American cities led by Black mayors.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Trump has accused Sharpton of wrongdoing. In July, Trump claimed that Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign paid Sharpton $600,000 for his endorsement. Sharpton previously explained that the payments were donations to NAN, his nonprofit, and that neither he nor National Action Network made an endorsement in the presidential contest.

Since being inaugurated for a second term in office, Trump has used the bully pulpit of the presidency to influence media and news networks, including suing Paramount for a CBS News interview with Harris. The 47th president of the United States claimed he suffered “mental anguish” over the editing of the interview, which he argued was done to bolster the former vice president’s candidacy in the 2024 election. Paramount ultimately settled the lawsuit for $16 million.

Trump’s FCC chairman recently tried to pressure Disney and ABC affiliates to axe Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after the comedian joked about Trump following the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s show was temporarily suspended, but was brought back on-air after public blowback.

The FCC has incredible influence and power over media companies, particularly Paramount and conglomerates that own ABC affiliates, like Nexstar Media Group, which need the federal agency to approve pending business mergers.

Former President Barack Obama warned that the trend of media companies giving in to such political pressure is a symptom of a larger, brewing crisis in America.

“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it,” he wrote on X.