The FCC chief targets the network over coverage and programming decisions that provoke the president.
In April, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revealed it would conduct an early review of ABC’s eight stations owned by the network, years ahead of their renewal dates. It marked the first time in more than fifty years that the agency had tested a broadcast license so far ahead of schedule, and the first time ever that such an early review would encompass all stations operated by a single network.
ABC and its parent company, Disney, argue in a federal lawsuit filed last week that this move constitutes an unconstitutional coercion campaign that has already chilled broadcast journalism. A bipartisan cohort of former FCC officials, including appointees from Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, agrees that the agency has launched “an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process” to “punish speech disfavored by the Trump administration.”
President Donald Trump has long threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses for coverage that displeases him. But this time, the FCC’s Trump-appointed chair, Brendan Carr, appears eager to act on that retaliatory impulse.
Carr frames the ABC review as a reaction to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives that could amount to “unlawful discrimination.” Yet he has signaled that the FCC is also weighing a broader question of whether ABC’s stations are serving “the public interest,” a vague statutory duty that he sees as a license to override freedom of the press.
The president’s grievances with ABC include what he sees as predominantly negative news coverage, its fact-checking during a 2024 presidential debate, anti-Trump commentary on programs such as The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and the network’s refusal to air his July 16 primetime speech, which followed a long string of similar requests by TV networks under earlier administrations. Carr, who routinely amplifies such complaints, believes they warrant FCC attention.
Shortly after taking office, Carr reopened an FCC probe into ABC’s alleged bias in debate moderation. Last September, Carr threatened ABC stations with fines or license revocation if they did not discipline Kimmel for suggesting that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a Trump supporter.
Carr, who announced the early review of ABC’s licenses the day after Trump and his wife objected to a joke Kimmel had made on his show, says the network’s decision not to broadcast Trump’s speech will be taken into account in that process, which could extend for years. He has also threatened to rescind The View‘s longstanding “bona fide news exemption” from the FCC’s “equal time” rule, a move that would effectively bar interviews with political candidates.
These regulatory threats have tangible effects. ABC and its affiliates promptly complied with Carr’s demands by suspending Kimmel’s show for a week last fall, The View has stopped interviewing political candidates, and ABC says it aired Trump’s entire speech on its streaming channel only to avoid provoking the FCC.
The consequences extend beyond ABC. Once television networks grasp that FCC objections to their reporting or editorial judgments could pose an existential risk to the stations they operate, they are inclined to second-guess decisions that might provoke the president.
From Carr’s viewpoint, that is precisely the objective. “Through this proceeding,” the former officials note, the commission “seeks to censor Disney’s and ABC’s speech and send a chilling message to all broadcasters: carry speech we don’t like at your peril.”
Carr, an avowed defender of the First Amendment, improbably asserts that he is trying to “re-empower local TV stations” by “reminding them” of their “unique public interest obligations.” It is difficult to see how threatening to put broadcasters out of business would empower them to do anything other than bow to the president.
“It’s not our role to be the speech police,” Carr told
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