News blog about US politics
US authorities threaten media with consequences for Iran reports
Updated March 15, 2026 – 1:28 amReading time: 18 minutes
After seven years, a flag flies again in front of the US embassy in Caracas. US media are criticized by the FCC authority. All developments in the news blog.
After the US government of President Donald Trump criticized some US media for their reporting on the Iran war, the US media regulator FCC has threatened consequences. According to the law, broadcasters must act “in the public interest,” explained FCC boss Brendan Carr on the online service X on Saturday. They will therefore lose their licenses “if they do not do this.”
Broadcasters that spread “hoaxes and distortions of news, also known as fake news,” now have “the chance to correct their course before their license renewals are due,” Carr warned. He did not name specific media.
The FCC chief’s statement was based on an online post by Trump in which the US president denounced “a deliberately misleading headline from the fake news media” about five tanker planes that were hit by Iranian attacks in Saudi Arabia.
For the first time in exactly seven years, the USA raised its flag at its embassy in Venezuela. “A new era has begun,” said the new US charge d’affaires in Venezuela, Laura Dogu, on Saturday. At the same time, she published a photo on the online service X of the US flag being hoisted in front of the embassy. This happened “exactly seven years after their removal” on March 14, 2019, Dogu emphasized. At that time, Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the US because Washington refused to recognize the re-election of President Nicolás Maduro in 2018. Since the closure, the US Mission to Venezuela has been based at the US Embassy in the Colombian capital Bogotá.
The left-wing President Maduro was captured in January during a US military operation in Caracas and taken to New York. He is to be tried there for “drug terrorism”. After Maduro’s capture, US President Donald Trump said that Venezuela was now under US control. Earlier this month, both countries officially resumed diplomatic relations. In recent weeks, Washington has also relaxed its sanctions against Venezuela.
Venezuela is currently led by interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who was praised by Trump as “fantastic.” Rodríguez was vice president under Maduro and was appointed interim head of state by the country’s Supreme Court after his capture. Trump’s support for Rodríguez is a setback for the conservative Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
White House AI representative David Sacks calls for an end to the US war against Iran. “This is a good time to declare victory and get out,” Sacks said on his “All-In Podcast” in Washington. The US has weakened Iran’s military capabilities. Now the country should find a way out of the situation.
