Disney and ABC filed a 119-page FCC response Thursday accusing the Trump administration of using broadcast license reviews as political retaliation for news coverage and programming the president dislikes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH6f42sSCQA
In the new 119-page filing to the FCC, Disney and ABC argue that President Trump and his administration are attempting to punish the networks for acts of free speech.
The filing, submitted July 29, targeted petitions seeking to deny license renewals for ABC’s eight owned-and-operated television stations.
“For years, President Trump has expressly demanded that the Commission revoke ABC’s broadcast licenses for speech he dislikes,” the filing reads in part.
Later, the filing reads, “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price.”
ABC’s eight stations include WABC-TV in New York, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, WLS-TV in Chicago, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, KTRK-TV in Houston, KGO-TV in San Francisco, WTVD-TV in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and KFSN-TV in Fresno, California.
The stations are facing an unusual early license review.
Back in April, the FCC was ordering reviews of eight Disney-owned ABC stations two years earlier than expected. The Disney licenses were not scheduled for review until October 2028.
The FCC cited diversity investigations as the reason.
In April, the FCC said early renewal was related to its investigation of Disney’s DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives.
Disney rejected that justification.
“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” the filing said. “Across the government, regulatory and contracting carrots and sticks have been trained on other disfavored speakers. The tools vary; the objective does not: a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely.”
According to ABC’s filings, the FCC has not found legitimate grounds to threaten the stations.
“The FCC has spent the last 18 months searching for some pretext for revoking the Stations’ licenses. The Commission has found none, because the Stations easily meet the standard for license renewal.”
Public support has surged for the stations.
The agency has received more than 153,000 comments on the proceeding — fueled by Disney’s campaign across the eight local stations urging viewers to share comments about the FCC’s review with the agency. “Over 140,000 comments have been received from the Stations’ local communities — from individual viewers to local police and firefighters, charities, businesses, and schools — and over 95% support the Stations.”
ABC said in an FCC filing submitted July 29 and posted publicly Thursday.
The company maintained that the early review violates the First Amendment.
ABC filed paperwork to renew its local TV station licenses “under protest in response to an unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional order” by the Federal Communications Commission. ABC attached an extraordinary objection letter that accused the Trump-aligned agency of using “unconstitutional retaliation and coercion” to threaten speech.
ABC has painted the investigation as a direct assault on free speech itself.
“The ultimate injury here is not to the Station or its parent company. It is to the public. When a broadcaster must weigh regulatory retaliation before making editorial decisions, the public loses access to journalism that is free from government influence. The Order — both on its own terms and as a signal to other broadcasters — advances exactly that result. A press that edits itself to avoid government displeasure is not a free press. The Commission should not be the instrument of that outcome,” the filing read.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has defended the early review as routine regulatory action.
When asked about the comments, Carr said that Disney is “running a fairly standard, off-the-shelf strategy” and argued that the FCC is simply enforcing the provisions of the Communications Act.
Carr has also signaled that ABC’s editorial choices will factor into the renewal.
A decision by the Walt Disney Company’s ABC to not pre-empt prime-time programming in order to carry President Donald Trump’s address to the nation last week will factor into an ongoing investigation at the Federal Communications Commission into Disney’s eight local TV broadcast licenses, the head of the agency affirmed on Wednesday. During a hastily-arranged press conference, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency will weigh ABC’s decision to not air the speech as part of its overall consideration on an application to renew the broadcast licenses of ABC’s local TV stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Fresno, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, Houston and Philadelphia.
The sole Democrat on the FCC, Commissioner Anna Gomez, has condemned the agency’s actions in the harshest terms.
She cited actions by the FCC, run by Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, targeting ABC over viewpoints expressed by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and hosts of “The View.” “What Disney and ABC are facing is not a series of coincidental regulatory actions but a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control, carried out through the weaponization of the FCC’s authority as a federal regulator and aimed at pressuring a free and independent press and all media into submission,” Gomez wrote.
In a written statement to Disney’s CEO, Gomez urged the company to fight.
“I am encouraged to see that Disney is choosing courage over capitulation. The fight ahead may not be easy, but the law, the facts, and the public are on your side. This is a fight worth having, and one that I am confident you will win.”
Gomez has also disputed the characterization of her agency’s actions.
“This vague public interest standard is being used just to punish speech that this administration doesn’t like and to reward speech that it does like,” Gomez said.
A bipartisan group of former FCC officials has joined the defense of ABC’s stations.
In a filing with the FCC, former commissioners and senior staff from Republican and Democratic administrations said the review could allow the agency to revoke ABC’s licenses years before they are due for renewal and appeared aimed at punishing a broadcaster that President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized. The signatories, including former Republican FCC commissioners Mark Fowler, Dennis Patrick, Alfred Sikes and Rachelle Chong and former Democratic Chair Tom Wheeler, said the review was “an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process.”
The former officials warned of broader consequences.
“Through this proceeding, the FCC 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,” They continued: “This renewal proceeding is the latest attack in a sustained campaign by Chairman Carr and the Trump administration of threatening legal sanctions against licensees whose speech President Trump dislikes. And although the purported justification for the early renewal proceeding is that it is in aid of a Commission investigation into unlawful employment discrimination, it is in fact an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process.”
Democratic senators have added their voices to the opposition.
Democratic Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla said the FCC’s order requiring ABC to seek an early license review “creates the strong appearance that the FCC’s licensing authority is being used to pressure or retaliate against protected speech.”
In the viral moment that sparked the broader conflict, Trump had demanded ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel after the late-night host made jokes about First Lady Melania Trump and later made comments following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The agency claimed it was part of its probe into DEI practices at Disney and ABC — but the move came one day after President Donald Trump called for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired over a joke the late-night host made about First Lady Melania Trump.
Kimmel’s show was subsequently pulled from the air by major affiliate groups including Nexstar and Sinclair, though Disney has maintained it temporarily suspended the program in response to public backlash rather than FCC pressure.
The confrontation escalated further when Carr in September 2025 defended ABC affiliates’ decisions to stop airing the Kimmel show.
“They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology,” Carr asserted.
Replies to Disney’s July 29 filing must be submitted to the FCC by August 5.