Broadcast giant ABC accused the Federal Communications Commission and its chair, Trump loyalist and Project 2025 contributor Brendan Carr, of violating the First Amendment with its investigation into popular talk show “The View.” The agency’s probe is premised on whether the show violated the FCC’s “equal-time rule.”
Weeks before Trump’s second inauguration, ABC came to a controversial, multimillion-dollar settlement with the president, effectively bending the knee to Trump’s assault on the free press. But that acquiescence doesn’t seem to have earned the company much grace from the Republican or his FCC. In recent months, the commission has made mafia-style threats against ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and more recently has turned its ire on “The View,” which the White House threatened last summer to take off the air somehow.
ABC filed a petition with the FCC on Thursday in response to the commission’s probe into whether “The View” violated rules requiring that networks provide equal time to political candidates who appear on their broadcasts. Variety reported:
Disney’s ABC is firing back at the FCC, accusing the agency of engaging in actions that “threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech.” The issue involves an FCC investigation into whether talk-show “The View” qualifies for an exemption to the agency’s equal-time political rule but ABC argues that implications are broader than just one TV show.
This investigation comes after the FCC in January changed the rules that exempted talk shows, like newscasts, from the equal-time rule, opening the door to a crackdown. My colleague Ebony Davis explained the move at the time:
Historically, appearances on true news programs, such as newscasts and news interviews, were exempt from this obligation. However, many talk and entertainment programs have long been treated as exempt under a 2006 FCC decision that allowed then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s interview on Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show” to count as a news interview.
The FCC probe into “The View” follows an appearance on the program by Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico in February. Talarico is seen by some as a formidable opponent to whichever candidate emerges victorious in Texas’ GOP Senate primary.
Notably, CBS talk show host Stephen Colbert said FCC threats over the equal-time rule played a role in the decision not to air his February interview with Talarico.(CBS said Colbert’s program was “not prohibited” from broadcasting the interview and that its lawyers offered “options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” Colbert called that statement “crap,” and the interview was shown on the program’s YouTube channel.)
ABC’s filing takes particular issue with the agency pushing an ABC affiliate in Texas to file a request to ask whether “The View” was covered by the equal-time exemption.
Variety noted the FCC has also moved forward with a separate, unprecedented push to force ABC to reapply for some of its broadcast licenses, a move the commission said is connected to its investigation of ABC’s diversity practices.
The FCC did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
There’s little reason to doubt that Carr has politicized the commission. As my colleague Anthony Fisher noted, the FCC chair has openly touted Trump’s efforts to bring the press to heel, citing the defunding of PBS, the purchase of CBS by a Trump ally and the firings of journalists whom Trump has criticized as examples of “winning” the president’s war on the press.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.