FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said that the agency may issue guidance on broadcasters’ reporting on political polls, after President Donald Trump called for action on data he has deemed as “fake.”
In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Carr said that “there’s a lot of interest right now in big polls that are out there, and so the FCC may put guidance out soon to remind broadcasters about their obligations with respect to not airing fake polls, particularly if they’re done to suppress people heading into the fall.”
Last month, Trump lashed out on coverage of poll results, which have been sagging in the 30s as Republicans seek to retain control of Congress.
On Aug. 30, Trump posted on Truth Social, “THE FAKE POLLS USED BY OUR CROOKED MEDIA ARE OUT OF CONTROL, AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT IT. FCC TO THE RESCUE! President DJT”
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With less than two months until the midterm elections, the airwaves likely will be filled with polling. There have been concerns raised about bogus polls, including the revelation that a recent poll of the Los Angeles mayoral race. Trump, though, has often dismissed the data as “fake” even from reputable pollsters, some of whom have been off at times, when the results are not favorable to him. He sued Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over a pre-election poll in 2024 that showed Kamala Harris with a lead in Iowa. As it turned out, Trump handily won the state.
Also on Aug. 30, Trump went after Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, who in an appearance on WRC-TV in Washington said that the president has “had some mixed results” when it comes to his endorsement record. While Trump’s endorsements have helped figures like Darline Graham, who won the nomination to succeeded her brother Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Senate, some of the president’s other picks have lost. They include Mike Lindell, who lost the GOP primary for Minnesota governor to Lisa Demuth, and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who lost in his reelection bid to primary challenger Charlie Hatcher.
Even though what Welker said was accurate, Trump vowed to report Welker to the FCC “for rebuke or punishment.”
In the Fox News Sunday interview, Carr did not directly address Welker, but didn’t dismiss the idea of the FCC trying to take action on her comments either.
Carr said, “The one thing that President Trump gets fundamentally is that broadcast TV is completely different than other forms of distribution, including cable. And so many broadcasters right now, they want to break the deal that they cut with the American people. They get billions of dollars in taxpayer effectively subsidized distribution. And what they’re supposed to do in exchange is operate in the public interest, not some sort of narrow partisan interest. I think President Trump is over the target, and we’re looking at a lot of actions.”
Carr has previously invoked the FCC’s broadcast distortion policy, which subjects broadcasters to enforcement “if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report.” The agency also advises on its website that it authority to take action “is narrow.” “The agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”
Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, said in an X post on Tuesday, “News coverage of a poll that doesn’t favor a political party is not a license to meddle in an election through intimidation. Broadcasters should take note. Do not let a sad and desperate attempt to punish accurate reporting become an excuse for censorship.”
She added, “Polls can be wrong. That’s no surprise to anyone who has followed politics over the last decade. The FCC faces a very high bar to prove news distortion, and it requires clear evidence of an intentional effort to mislead the public. Without it, this is all political theater.”
