The company claims that the FCC challenging its broadcast licenses on shows like “The View” is a free speech violation by the Trump administration.

Disney sues FCC over ‘retaliatory campaign’ against ABC

The company claims that the FCC challenging its broadcast licenses on shows like “The View” is a free speech violation by the Trump administration.

By Leigh Blickley

August 18, 2026 11:20 a.m. ET

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- ABC is suing the FCC over their early broadcast license renewal request.

- The Disney-owned network claims the FCC “has waged a retaliatory campaign” against them because they don’t like what ABC broadcasts.

- The lawsuit comes amid a probe into content on *The View* and after Jimmy Kimmel controversies.

ABC is taking aim at the Federal Communications Commission after the agency challenged its broadcast licenses and content on *The View*.

The Walt Disney Company-owned network filed a lawsuit against the FCC in D.C. District Court on Tuesday, claiming its early broadcast license renewal request for the company’s eight television stations is a free speech violation by President Donald Trump’s administration.

According to *The Hollywood Reporter*, which reviewed the suit, ABC is asking for a “speedy hearing,” temporary restraining order, and preliminary injunction. *NBC News* also reported that the company is requesting the court “immediately” stop the FCC “from taking or threatening to take any action” against Disney and ABC stations “in relation to the early license renewal applications.”

“The Commission issued an unprecedented order requiring the Stations to file early applications to renew their licenses—years before any of their licenses would have come up for renewal in the ordinary course and allowing only thirty days to file applications which ordinarily take months to prepare,” attorneys Beth Wilkinson and Paul Clement reportedly wrote in the civil complaint.

In April, the FCC ordered Disney’s television stations to file their broadcast license renewals ahead of schedule. That order came amid a probe into ABC’s *The View*, which the FCC argued is not a “bona fide” news program and therefore not exempt from FCC equal opportunity rules.

The FCC’s demands also came amid a long-running investigation into diversity, equity and inclusion practices at Disney, and around the time the White House assailed ABC late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel for a joke about the first lady Melania Trump. (*Jimmy Kimmel Live *was previously temporarily pulled from the air last September after the late-night host upset some with his comments about the killing of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk.)

“Until the day before that order was issued, the Commission had not called for a renewal application ahead of schedule in more than half a century. Nor had it ever demanded simultaneous early renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a single broadcast network — much less stations with the record of public service and award-winning journalism like these stations,” the suit reportedly read. “In a contemporaneous interview, the Chairman did not mince words when explaining the Commission’s decision to ramp up its pressure on ABC: ‘If you didn’t take us seriously, now you should.’”

A July episode of ABC’s ‘The View’.

The lawsuit specifically cited President Trump’s own social media posts, including one in which he questioned whether networks should have their broadcast licenses “terminated” for being “negative” toward him.

“If Network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are almost 100% Negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their very valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!” Trump wrote on Truth Social in December 2025.

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In the suit, lawyers stated that the administration was “acting through the Federal Communications Commission” and “has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts.”

The suit continued, “That campaign began in this Administration’s earliest days and has only intensified since.”

Lawyers also pointed to a moment where Trump called for full revocation of ABC’s and NBC’s licenses for not broadcasting his July 16 primetime address live.

“ABC was aware that the President wanted the address to be broadcast live, and considered the risk of resulting Administration retaliation. ABC ultimately decided to livestream the speech on ABC News LIVE, which it ordinarily would not have done,” the suit reportedly read.

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“The Commission’s true target is not the stations’ employment practices or their carriage of a single presidential address; it is the content of plaintiffs’ programming — and thus their speech,” the suit continued. “Because the Commission cannot regulate that content directly, it has used its review of the stations’ licenses as an instrument to the same end.”

** has reached out to the FCC, Disney, and ABC’s lawyers Clement and Wilkinson for comment.

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