President Trump suggested yesterday that the US government should revoke the licenses of TV networks that are overwhelmingly critical of him.

The suggestion came a day after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely following pressure from the FCC, the US’ broadcast media regulator. Trump claimed the show went dark due to low ratings and because Kimmel said a “horrible thing” about Charlie Kirk.

Earlier this week, Kimmel accused Trump’s allies of “desperately trying” to portray the suspect in Kirk’s killing “as anything other than one of them.” The Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened action against ABC affiliates if they didn’t take measures against the comedian.

The FCC’s role

Following Carr’s criticism, Nexstar, the owner of 32 ABC affiliate stations, denounced Kimmel’s Kirk take and said it would replace his show with other content. Shortly after, ABC said that it would suspend Kimmel’s program nationally. Another ABC affiliate station operator, Sinclair, also said it wouldn’t air Kimmel’s show, even if it is reinstated, until ABC donates to Kirk’s organization.

But industry analysts pointed out that the FCC’s role in approving industry mergers might’ve played a part in the TV giants’ decisions:

• Nexstar will need the FCC to greenlight its $6.2 billion planned merger with broadcaster Tegna.
• ABC’s parent company, Disney, is also looking for FCC approval for its subsidiary ESPN’s acquisition of the NFL Network.

Free speech fears

House Democrats accused Carr of abuse of power and called on him to resign. The sole Democratic FCC Commissioner, Anna Gomez, said the agency was “weaponizing its licensing authority.” Carr claimed that Kimmel spread misinformation, saying that broadcasters must operate in the public interest.

The FCC’s pressuring of ABC was condemned by the advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, as well as the editorial board of the Free Press—two organizations that have previously criticized Democrats over free speech issues.

Looking ahead: Carr said “we’re not done yet,” suggesting that more regulatory action directed at TV networks is coming. Trump also called on NBC to cancel Jimmy Fallon’s and Seth Meyers’s late-night shows.—SK

Nvidia is investing $5 billion in rival Intel. A month after the Trump administration took a 10% stake in the struggling chipmaker, Nvidia—the largest company in the world by market cap—is pushing its chips in, too. With the investment, Nvidia and Intel will jointly develop chips for data centers and personal computers, giving Intel another boost for its turnaround plan while allowing Nvidia to move deeper into the PC market. The companies have reportedly been discussing a deal since last year, before the Trump administration bought a stake in Intel. Nvidia’s cash infusion increases the value of the government’s stake by nearly $5 billion to $14 billion. The news powered Intel’s stock to its best day yesterday since 1987.

Trump asks SCOTUS to allow the firing of Lisa Cook. The next big Supreme Court case could be over the fate of a Federal Reserve governor. Yesterday, President Trump asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to remove Lisa Cook from the Fed’s board of governors after an appeals court permitted her to keep her job. Trump has tried to fire Cook for allegedly claiming two different properties as her primary residences, which Cook has denied. (Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, allegedly did the same thing he has accused Cook of doing, Bloomberg reported.) Per the Associated Press, no president has fired a Fed governor in the 112-year history of the agency, which was designed to remain independent from partisan politics.

Starbucks workers are suing the company over its new dress code. Sbux employees filed lawsuits in Illinois and Colorado and a complaint in California alleging that the coffee giant broke the law when it changed its dress code but failed to reimburse those who had to buy new clothes. In May, Starbucks began requiring workers to wear a solid black shirt under their green aprons in order to give customers a more consistent experience across stores. Previous dress codes were reportedly lax, but the new one is being strictly enforced, the Associated Press reported. Starbucks did not comment directly on the lawsuits, but noted that it provided employees with two shirts at no cost.—AE

One thing uniting this country is disdain for how expensive it is to see Lady Gaga: Two administrations in a row have now sued Ticketmaster. The FTC and seven states sued Ticketmaster’s parent company Live Nation yesterday over its resale practices, accusing the company of being weak on scalpers in order to profit off of ticket reselling.

The lawsuit alleges that despite publicly rolling out security measures that limit the amount of tickets individuals can buy, Ticketmaster lets resellers create thousands of accounts. The suit contends that the company then reaps another round of fees from sellers and buyers on its resale platform after collecting on the tickets’ initial purchase.

• The complaint says an internal review by the company showed that just five brokers owned 6,345 Ticketmaster accounts that held 246,407 tickets.
• Ticketmaster collected $11 billion in fees on ticket sales from 2019 to 2024, with nearly $3.7 billion of that coming from resold tickets, according to the FTC.

Live Nation and Ticketmaster haven’t publicly responded to the lawsuit.

Ticketmaster’s legal team is busy: Last year, the DOJ under the Biden administration filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, which owns as much as 80% of the primary ticket sale market, saying that the live entertainment behemoth must break up. That suit remains ongoing.—MM

Credit, credit, on the card, how much in annual fees shall we charge? For American Express, the answer is $895. The company unveiled its updated Platinum Card yesterday, with a major price increase and new lifestyle and travel benefits geared toward wealthy millennials and Gen Zers.

The new annual fee represents a nearly 30% jump from the card’s previous yearly price of $695. To justify it, AmEx is offering a total of $3,500 in possible yearly rewards—more than double that of the old Platinum. This includes:

• New credits to spend at Resy, Lululemon, Uber One, Paramount+, YouTube, and the smart ring company Oura.
• As much as $600 in hotel credits, up from $200.

“We are not trying to attract every millennial and Gen Z.” Howard Grosfield, AmEx’s US Consumer Services group president, told the New York Times. “We found a way to hit the heartstrings of the subset of truly premium millennial and Gen Z’s.” AmEx showed that millennials and Gen Z made up its fastest-growing customer base in its annual report last year.

Meanwhile…Chase recently refreshed its competing card, the Sapphire Reserve, and raised its annual fee by 45% to $795. Citibank also launched a travel-focused card for $595.

Money to be made: The top 10% of earners in the US currently account for nearly half of all consumer spending.—ML

It’s not just Dewey Cox: A growing number of people in the US and around the world want a part of cocaine. Since 2019, cocaine consumption has gone up by 154% in the Western US and by 19% in the Eastern US as the crackdown on fentanyl and subsequent increase in cocaine production in Colombia drives prices down, the Wall Street Journal reported this week:

• One expert told the WSJ that cocaine prices have plummeted in half over the last five years to ~$60-75 per gram.
• Not only is that enabling more use in the US, but it’s also leading to a surge worldwide, per a United Nations report from earlier this year.

On the bright side, fentanyl use in the US has been declining since mid-2023, according to the CDC.—AE

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to making it onto a train or a bus just as the doors are closing, like you’re Indiana Jones (minus the fedora).

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.