ABC filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, accusing it of punishing television stations for content President Donald Trump dislikes.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has threatened ABC’s broadcast licenses and investigated its workplace diversity practices, as well as Democratic Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico’s appearance on “The View.” The complaint contends these moves amount to First Amendment violations.
“The Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the company’s attorneys wrote in the court filing. “That campaign began in this Administration’s earliest days and has only intensified since.”
ABC is seeking emergency intervention from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stop the FCC from demanding early renewal for eight of the company’s television stations. None of the licenses was set to expire before 2028, but Carr demanded they file renewals this year. The FCC had not called for early renewals for more than 50 years, according to the complaint.
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A spokesperson for the commission said Disney, ABC’s parent company, was engaging in a campaign of disinformation and that the FCC would continue to follow the facts.
The lawsuit highlights Trump’s repeated demands that ABC be stripped of its licenses, including during his July 16 primetime address that ABC didn’t air on broadcast but livestreamed digitally.
“In a rare move, NBC and ABC fake news have both said that they would not cover this speech. They knew what it was about,” Trump said. “They and others in the media are part of a plot. They want to continue this fraud for whatever reason. … You can’t have a great country without free and fair elections. Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses.”
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s on-air comments also triggered the FCC’s moves to shape the company’s content, ABC’s lawsuit states. The order to file the license renewals came the day after Trump called for ABC to fire Kimmel for his pre-White House Correspondents Dinner joke referring to first lady Melania Trump as having “a glow like an expectant widow.”
The timing was not related to the president’s comments, Carr said in a Politico interview.
Last year, Carr’s threat to take action against ABC following Kimmel’s remarks on the assasination of Charlie Kirk prompted the company to pull his show for several days.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said at the time during a podcast interview with right-wing political commentator Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
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