Eric Trump is backing a Senate push for an FCC investigation into ABC News after the network published, then quietly deleted, a flawed report linking his family’s investments to billions in Pentagon deals.
On Monday, Eric Trump thanked Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno for pressing federal regulators and demanded answers from the Disney-owned network over how the story was handled.
Reporting detailed that Moreno wrote FCC Chairman Brendan Carr urging a formal inquiry into what the senator called a false account of Trump family-linked business activity and Anduril Industries contracts.
The original ABC News piece carried the headline “Trump sons’ investments have won billions in Pentagon contracts since his election.” It examined investments tied to Donald Trump Jr. and companies connected to the president’s sons.
Moreno told Carr the commission should dig into who approved the story and whether ABC violated its duties as a broadcast licensee.
"Thus, I urge the Commission to open a formal investigation into ABC News’s political hit job. We must know who signed off on the publication of this false story, who may have asked to profit from the attack, and whether ABC News’s conduct violated its obligations as a licensee,"
the senator wrote.
Eric Trump answered on X on October 12, 2026, saying he was ready to take part.
"Thank you @berniemoreno, can’t wait to participate! You can’t publish a bulls*** hit-piece, let it spread and go viral, then delete it 24 hours later, under the cover of darkness with no explanation or apology. Who approved it? Has the author been fired? @ABC owes us answers."
he posted.
The Wednesday version of the story claimed 1789 Capital, where Trump Jr. serves as a partner, acquired a major stake in defense contractor Anduril Industries through a $2.5 billion investment.
That figure described Anduril’s broader fundraising round. 1789 Capital’s actual investment stood at roughly $50 million. The revised article also clarified that Trump Jr. does not serve on the firm’s investment decision-making committee.
Those errors sat at the center of the dispute. The network had tied family-linked capital to large Pentagon outcomes in terms the correction later walked back.
About a day after publication, ABC removed the report with no public explanation. On Friday the network put up a substantially revised article that acknowledged mistakes on investments, government contracts, and the timeline of events.
The new headline read, “New shipyard announced amid earlier Democratic concerns about potential conflicts of interest.” The individual byline for investigative reporter Nathan Lee was replaced with a generic “ABC News” credit.
A 1789 Capital source told Fox News Digital that an ABC journalist involved with the story defended it by phone before the deletion. Semafor later reported that editors initially stood by the published piece, based on emails between Lee and an Anduril spokesperson.
That account sits uneasily beside the network’s suggestion to other media reporters that the story had gone out “prematurely.” ABC News did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Moreno’s letter frames the episode as more than a routine correction. He asked whether the network’s conduct breached obligations that come with holding a broadcast license, and he wanted names attached to the decision to publish.
Carr has been put on notice. No public response from the FCC chairman, and no announced inquiry, appears in the available record so far.
What is already plain is the sequence: a sweeping headline about billions in Pentagon contracts, a fivefold inflation of one firm’s stake into an entire fundraising round, a quiet takedown, a rewritten story, and a byline that vanished into the institution.
Eric Trump’s questions remain the practical ones regulators can test, who signed off, whether anyone has been held to account, and why a contested report was allowed to circulate before the cleanup.
When a major network inflates a business tie, lets it run, then erases its own byline, viewers are right to expect more than a quiet rewrite, and senators are right to ask the FCC whether the license still means anything.
