U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (not pictured) in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday demanded that ABC’s broadcast license be revoked, berating a reporter who asked him why the network was not releasing files on his former friend and notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“I think you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump told ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce.
The president said he didn’t like Bruce’s “attitude.”
“You should go back and learn how to be a reporter. You don’t need to ask any more questions,” Trump said in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Trump’s rant came just days before the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would force the Justice Department to release all records relating to Epstein.
The Justice Department refused to release these documents earlier this year, despite prior promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials.
President Trump does not need to wait for Congress to pass the bill. He could order the Justice Department to release more Epstein files.
“Why should we wait for Congress to release the Epstein files?” Bruce asked the president. “Why don’t you do it now?”
“As far as the Epstein file goes, I have nothing to do with him,” Trump said.
“I kicked him out of the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, years ago because I thought he was a horrible pervert,” Trump said of the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The people are wise to your falsehoods,” the president told reporters. “Your crappy company is also one of the perpetrators.”
“And I’ll tell you something,” Trump said. “I think you should be stripped of your license by the ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong.”
“We have a great commissioner…who should be considering it,” he added, referring to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who oversees broadcast licensing.
In September, Carr threatened ABC’s broadcast license over late-night show Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Kerr said on the podcast at the time. “These companies can, frankly, find a way to change their behavior and take action against Kimmel. Or it’s going to take more action down the road for the FCC.”
Hours after Kerr’s remarks, ABC took “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air.
The show returned to air about a week later following backlash against ABC and its parent company. disney.
Trump has repeatedly called the Epstein scandal a “hoax” created by Democrats, even though members of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement were leading proponents of releasing the files.
And President Trump was unable to dissuade Republicans in Congress from supporting the open files bill.
On Sunday night, just as the chances of passage of the Epstein bill seemed increasing, President Trump abruptly reversed course and called on his Republican allies to support the bill.
President Trump said Monday that he would sign the bill if Congress passed it.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were longtime friends but had a falling out several years before Mr. Epstein was arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges and committed suicide in prison in August 2019.
Last week, the House Oversight Committee released emails showing Epstein discussing Trump.
In one 2019 email, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls.”
