This mirrors the European Union's threats to fine Elon Musk's companies if President Trump were allowed to participate in a live stream on X.
You may recall that incident. Thierry Breton, who was the unelected bureaucrat in charge of the EU's censorship regime, sent a letter to Elon Musk threatening to fine all of Musk's companies billions of dollars if he held a "Spaces" interview with Trump. All those liberals who worried about foreign interference with our elections seemed fine with that, until Musk gave Breton the finger.
Now Ofcom, which regulates British companies, is doing the same thing to GB News.
Their crime? Interviewing Donald Trump and airing what he said.
GB News faces investigation over Donald Trump interview https://t.co/FqcP8g3DN5
— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) May 16, 2026
Ofcom is set to investigate GB News over its interview with President Donald Trump.
The ever muscle-flexing regulator is reviewing an interview with President Trump after GB News allegedly failed to challenge the President’s “astonishingly false claims” when he described climate change as a “hoax”.
Ofcom had previously declined to investigate the original broadcast of the interview 12 hours earlier, but has now U-turned, deciding that the second screening contained different content and therefore counts as “a different programme”.
The regulator went on to say: “Each case is considered on its own merits,” a spokesman said, “taking into account the particular content and contextual factors.” For this reason, “we are investigating whether [the rerun] breached our rules on due impartiality and material misleadingness”.
Earlier this year, Ofcom launched an investigation into TalkTV — its first over climate-sceptic comments in a decade.
GB News said: “The sequence of events inevitably raises questions around the rationale for reopening the matter at this stage. It also raises serious concerns around regulatory certainty, procedural fairness and the consistency of Ofcom’s processes.”
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The position of Ofcom is that Donald Trump is a liar, and it is the job of Ofcom to silence him as much as humanly possible, especially if he is talking to an interviewer who is not explicitly hostile to him.
Trump was critical of policies the Labour government likes, so he must be silenced, or those who platform him must be punished.
GB News is facing an investigation over claims it broke broadcasting rules by failing to challenge Donald Trump when he called climate change “a hoax”.
Ofcom said it had launched an investigation into a re-run of a GB News interview with Mr Trump for the midday broadcast of The Weekend.
The regulator previously declined to launch an investigation into the original airing of the same interview 12 hours earlier, on GB News’ The Late Show Live, stating the programme had featured “alternative perspectives” as part of a panel discussion.
The new investigation concerns a second screening of the sit-down interview on Nov 15. Ofcom is expected to examine the surrounding content shown alongside the interview.
An Ofcom spokesman said: “This programme featured an interview by GB News presenter, Bev Turner, with US President Donald Trump. We are investigating whether it breached our rules on due impartiality and material misleadingness.
Trump, it seems, committed heresy by questioning climate change, and in Ed Miliband's UK that is cause for excommunication from society. Along with anybody who allows Trump to be heard spreading wrongthink.
GB News has repeatedly clashed with Ofcom over its programming, with the regulator fining the channel £100,000 for a broadcast featuring Rishi Sunak, then prime minister, in February 2024.
Ofcom had said at the time that the channel gave Mr Sunak an “uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his Government in a period preceding the UK General Election”. GB News is partly owned by Sir Paul Marshall, a hedge fund manager.
Bob Ward, of the London School of Economics’ Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said the GB News interview with Mr Trump had included an “astonishing number of false claims”.
The government demands a monopoly on The Truth, and hence a monopoly on speech itself.
Even if GB News comes out unscathed this time, the fact that it is being harassed is enough to shape its willingness to air dissenting views.
Which is the point, of course. Once you allow dissent and debate, even if it includes allowing the President of the United States to speak, who knows what will happen next?
People might question whether masks worked, or whether mRNA vaccines are 100% safe and effective, or whether illegal immigration is an unmitigated good.
Anarchy!
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