FCC Chair Brendan Carr targets news outlets

April 28, 2026 | FCC orders early license renewal applications from ABC-owned stations

March 14, 2026 | FCC chair threatens licenses of broadcasters for Iran war coverage

April 28, 2026 | FCC orders early license renewal applications from ABC-owned stations

The Federal Communications Commission ordered The Walt Disney Company on April 28, 2026, to apply for license renewals for all of its ABC TV stations, two years or more before licenses for any of the eight stations were scheduled to expire. The order mandated that the stations comply by May 28.

The FCC’s order cited its investigations of the stations “for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination,” indicating the order was connected to FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s probe into the company’s promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

But observers have speculated that the move was a response to President Donald Trump’s call for ABC to fire comedian Jimmy Kimmel, host of the late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

Kimmel had joked on his April 23 telecast that first lady Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow,” a remark he later explained was a reference to the age difference with the president, who turns 80 in June (she is 56).

Two days after the remark, at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner attended by the president and first lady, a man armed with guns and knives ran past security and was apprehended. He was charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

Then, on April 27, Trump, who has criticized Kimmel extensively, called for the comedian’s termination on social media, saying the widow joke was “beyond the pale.” The next day, the FCC issued its order to Disney.

Carr has also criticized Kimmel, suggesting in September 2025 the FCC might take action against ABC in response to comments by Kimmel about the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. ABC then suspended Kimmel’s show for six days.

In response to the April 2026 order, Disney told CBS News, “We are confident that the 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.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is a project, condemned the FCC’s order.

“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,” FPF’s Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern said. “This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.”

March 14, 2026 | FCC chair threatens licenses of broadcasters for Iran war coverage

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr on March 14, 2026, threatened broadcasters with the loss of their licenses for what he characterized as “running hoaxes and news distortions” in their accounts of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

In a social media post, Carr quoted a screenshot of a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump, in which the president alleged that The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and “other Lowlife ‘Papers’ and Media” want the U.S. to lose the war with Iran.

Although Trump did not mention any TV news outlets by name, Carr noted, “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” The FCC chair then added that those broadcasters “have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”

“The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves,” he continued. “It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”

According to the FCC, while over-the-air local broadcast television stations are subject to the agency’s jurisdiction with respect to “news distortion,” newspapers are not.

In a Truth Social post the next day, Trump said he was “thrilled” to see that Carr was looking into the licenses of “some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations.”

Trump added: “They get Billions of Dollars of FREE American Airwaves, and use it to perpetuate LIES, both in News and almost all of their Shows, including the Late Night Morons, who get gigantic Salaries for horrible Ratings, and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, ‘FIRED.’”

In a March 16 statement, Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, noted that the agency “licenses local broadcast stations, not networks, and no licenses are up for renewal until 2028.” She added that Carr’s threats “are grounded in neither reality nor law and would not survive judicial scrutiny, just as other recent attempts by this Administration to push beyond constitutional limits have repeatedly failed in court.”

“The concern over the chilling effect of these actions, however, is very real,” she said.