Trump administration challenges ABC station licenses amid Kimmel controversy

U.S. President Donald Trump and Melania Trump called for ABC to fire late night host Jimmy Kimmel over jokes they call ‘beyond the pale.’

As the Trump administration pressures ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, the Trump-aligned FCC is challenging the network’s station licenses, setting up a legal battle with ABC’s parent company Disney.

“Disney’s ABC is hereby directed to file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days — in other words, by May 28, 2026,” the agency said in an order published Tuesday afternoon.

The order will not affect the local stations right away. It is just the start of a protracted legal process, and ABC has broad legal protections.

Nevertheless, the FCC order is an extraordinary escalation by the Trump administration.

While the FCC asserts that the license review is related to an ongoing probe into Disney’s diversity initiatives, it is being widely viewed as a form of government retaliation for airing Kimmel’s show and resisting Trump’s pressure.

“This weapon certainly hasn’t been deployed against a major broadcaster in many decades,” public interest lawyer Andrew Jay Schwartzman told CNN.

Disney responded to the FCC’s action by saying that “ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming.”

“We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” Disney’s statement said. “Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

Earlier, Disney executives opted not to respond to Trump’s Monday afternoon Truth Social post blaming Kimmel for Saturday’s shooting incident outside the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and saying he “should be immediately fired.”

But actions speak louder than words, and Disney’s actions have shown support for Kimmel. Airing his show Monday night was the strongest defense of all, particularly because the show was briefly suspended last fall amid an earlier campaign of government pressure against ABC.

Kimmel stands his ground

In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said his comment last week that has garnered so much criticism in the wake of the shooting — about First Lady Melania Trump looking like an “expectant widow” — was a joke “about the fact that (Trump is) almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.”

Kimmel told viewers, “Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I and as are all of us, because under the First Amendment we have as Americans the right to free speech.”

Kimmel’s monologue has racked up millions of views on YouTube and has garnered him widespread praise from TV critics and free expression advocates.

It also attracted even more criticism from the White House on Tuesday, with communications director Steven Cheung assailing Kimmel for not apologizing, and insisting that ABC “needs to fire him immediately.”

Then came word of the FCC license examination.

The FCC is the US government agency that manages the use of public spectrum by granting licenses to local radio and TV stations. Licensees apply for renewals every eight years, and licenses are virtually never revoked.

But in the Trump era, the FCC is wielding its power in new ways.

Tuesday’s order involves the eight ABC stations that Disney owns and operates in cities such as New York and Chicago, not the 200-plus ABC-affiliated stations across the United States that are owned by other companies.

The eight licenses in question aren’t due for renewal for years. But FCC chair Brendan Carr signaled last month that he might take this step, writing on X, “The Communications Act authorizes the FCC to call in licenses for early renewal.”

A rare move with little precedent

The FCC had not filed an early-renewal order in decades, according to a source familiar with the matter, until Monday, when the agency took action against a small station license holder called Bridge News.

Both Bridge and Disney will now go through a lengthy hearing process, giving the stations multiple chances to respond.

“The legal standard for denying a license renewal is almost insurmountable,” Schwartzman told CNN, adding that “a hearing and subsequent judicial review would take years, during which time the broadcaster can continue to operate as normal.”

The FCC said in its Tuesday paperwork that it has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations “for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”

Carr, following the president’s lead, has depicted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at companies like Disney as discriminatory and has pushed media companies to abandon those programs.

In a recent podcast taping with Katie Miller, wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Carr said the investigation of Disney has surfaced evidence that “suggests” the company was “dividing and categorizing employees based on race and gender.”

He said “that could raise character questions about the company,” seemingly justifying a review of Disney’s licenses, since the FCC is charged with evaluating the “character” of license-holders.

The FCC sent a “letter of inquiry” to ABC about its daytime talk show “The View” earlier this year, signaling an investigation into whether “equal time” rules were violated. Liberal commentary on “The View” has long fuelled conservative complaints about media bias.

When the process is the pressure

The FCC’s enforcement powers are limited, which is why numerous analysts — and the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner Anna Gomez — have suggested that the process is the intended punishment.

Gomez on Tuesday criticized her commission’s order, calling it “the most egregious action this FCC has taken in violation of the First Amendment to date.”

“As part of its ongoing campaign of censorship and control, the White House called publicly for the silencing of a vocal critic, and this FCC has now answered that call,” she added. “This is an unprecedented and politically motivated attempt to interfere with how broadcasters operate, and this unlawful overreach will fail. This should be a lesson to media companies that no amount of capitulation to this Administration will buy them protection. The only choice is to stand up and stand firm in defense of the First Amendment.”

Press freedom advocates say Disney has numerous legal lines of defense.

“The First Amendment and the FCC’s mandate do not permit the agency to use broadcast licenses as weapons to punish broadcasters for constitutionally protected content they air,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement. “Brendan Carr was once a serious communications lawyer, and has repeatedly and correctly said that the FCC has no role in policing content, whether news reporting or comedians’ late-night jokes.”

“Carr’s decision to abandon his principles to kiss up to Trump to advance his career does not change the law that Carr knows full-well applies,” Stern added. “The FCC is neither the journalism police nor the humour police. This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.”

By Brian Stelter, CNN