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Trump suggests that networks who cover him ‘negatively’ should lose their licenses
On Air Force One, Donald Trump gaggled with reporters on his flight back to the US. The president said that the major US networks were “97% against me”.
He didn’t offer evidence to prove this figure, or how this conclusion was evaluated. He simply said that he read the statistic “someplace”.
“Again, 97% negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states,” Trump added. “They give me only bad press. I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their licenses should be taken away.”
Key events
José Olivares
Local elected officials, religious leaders and immigrant rights protesters in New York are currently staging a protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) offices in downtown Manhattan.
A group of demonstrators, including members of the New York City council and New York State Assembly are blocking the garage entrance and exit, where Ice enters and exists to transport recently-arrested immigrants. Among the demonstrators blocking the garage are New York City council member Tiffany Cabán, New York State Senator Robert Jackson, City council member Alexa Avilés and New York State Assembly member Alex Bores.
HAPPENING NOW🚨Immigrant rights protesters in New York are blocking the garage where ICE leaves to transport immigrants detained by the agency.
Local elected officials and religious leaders are engaging in the protest. pic.twitter.com/Awt6UVYAZZ— Jose Olivares (@jlosc9) September 18, 2025
At least 70 demonstrators arrived to protest the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies.
Elected officials and activists are also protesting inside the immigration courts, where immigrants have been arrested in the past few months. Among those inside the hallways are New York City’s chief financial officer, Brad Lander, New York State Senator Julia Salazar, New York State assembly member Emily Gallagher and New York State Senator Jabari Brisport.
In the final answer of his Fox News interview, Trump said that while it is “ideally” his job to bring people together, “success” ultimately brought people together in the past.
“I think the only thing that’s going to bring them is tremendous success, and that includes economic success,” Trump said, after suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic was part of the reason behind the rise in “tremendous hatred”.
The president has received intense criticism from Democratic leaders for politicizing Charlie Kirk’s murder, and blaming the “radical left” for his death without denouncing political violence at large.
In his interview with Fox News, Donald Trump said that he’s not sure about who is behind what he sees as “crazed” behavior and statements, following the killing of Charlie Kirk. He noted one example of someone trampling through flowers and tributes to Kirk outside Turning Point USA’s headquarters in Arizona.
When Martha MacCallum asked the president who he thinks is “behind” these actions, Trump said: “You hear [George] Soros, I don’t know.”
He added that “we’re going to find out if he’s behind it, but it’s incitement to riot”.
Trump says American manufacturing will take effect ‘in a year or so’
The president just said, in line with his previous comments, that the revitalization in American manufacturing will start to really take effect in a “year or so”.
“Car companies are moving back,” Trump said. “They’re all coming back now to the United States. They’re building car companies and factories, all of the coming back from Mexico and Canada.”
‘He’s a very fine guy’, Trump says of British PM Starmer
Donald Trump said that Keir Starmer is a “very fine guy” when asked about how the British prime minister is handling immigration in the UK.
“He’s more liberal than me. I think he should take a very strong stand on the immigration it’s really hurting him badly,” Trump added. “I think he has to open up the North Sea. They have some of the best oil in the world, and they have a lot of it.”
Trump says King Charles is a ‘tremendous man’ in Fox News interview
The president has said King Charles is a “tremendous man who really stepped into a very tough position” in an interview with Fox News, airing now.
When asked about the substance of Trump’s conversation with King Charles, the president said: “I think that he was more interested in trade. You know, he loves the environment too. He likes to talk about the environment, but he was more interested in trade than anything else.”
The president added that Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), is “outstanding as a patriot”.
Carr faced calls from top House Democrats to resign today, while congressman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, even motioned to subpoena Carr in front of the House Oversight committee.
“This administration has initiated the largest assault on the first amendment and free speech in modern history. They’re making comedy illegal,” Khanna said.
For his part, Trump said that the head of the FCC “loves our country” and that “he’s a tough guy”.
“I think Brendan Carr is doing a great job, and I think he’s a great patriot,” the president added.
Trump suggests that networks who cover him ‘negatively’ should lose their licenses
On Air Force One, Donald Trump gaggled with reporters on his flight back to the US. The president said that the major US networks were “97% against me”.
He didn’t offer evidence to prove this figure, or how this conclusion was evaluated. He simply said that he read the statistic “someplace”.
“Again, 97% negative, and yet I won easily. I won all seven swing states,” Trump added. “They give me only bad press. I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their licenses should be taken away.”
Barack Obama weighs in on Kimmel suspension, accuses Trump administration of ‘muzzling’ or ‘firing’ dissenters
Former president Barack Obama has weighed in on the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show.
“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama wrote in a post on X.
He also shared an article about fired Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, who says she was dismissed from the paper for social media posts she made following the killing of Charlie Kirk, where she denounced political violence, but lamented the lack of action to curb gun violence.
Obama said her firing was “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.
Chris Stein
Earlier, at a press conference with Democratic lawmakers introducing the No Political Enemies (Nope) Act, senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, gave a hint as to how Democrats may get around the GOP’s rejection of their effort to protect dissenting speech, noting the issue could come into play in the ongoing dispute over how to fund the government and prevent a shutdown after 30 September.
“I’ll just speak for myself – I do not think Democrats have an obligation to fund the destruction of our democracy. And so, of course, for me, I am going to require that there be at least some modicum of protections for democracy in any budget that we pass,” he said, adding: “Why would we write a budget that the president isn’t even committed to implementing? Why would we fund this level of lawlessness at a moment that the country is under threat?”
