Broadcast giant ABC’s apparent efforts to kneel at President Donald Trump’s feet have not spared the network from his administration’s “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control,” according to a Biden-appointed member of the Federal Communications Commission.
That’s the crux of a warning reportedly sent by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez to Josh D’Amaro, the CEO of Disney, the parent company of ABC. The Wall Street Journal reported on the letter, which has not been independently confirmed by MS NOW.
The timing is noteworthy, as it comes days after ABC submitted a filing accusing the FCC of free speech violations for investigating “The View,” a popular talk show Trump has threatened to take off the air.
ABC has been a victim of a “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” by the Trump administration, Federal Communications Commissioner Anna Gomez told Josh D’Amaro, chief executive of Disney, the network’s parent company.
The FCC under Republican Chairman Brendan Carr has been weaponized to pressure “a free and independent press and all media into submission,” Gomez wrote in a letter sent to D’Amaro on Monday and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Carr, a co-author of the far-right playbook Project 2025, has hardly hidden his support for this kind of politicized pressure campaign. As examples of “winning” the president’s war against the press, he recently boasted about the defunding of PBS and the purchase of CBS by a Trump ally, as well as the departures of some high-profile journalists targeted by Trump. And last year, Carr himself issued a mafia-style threat against ABC in an effort to force talk show host Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
Now, the Trump administration, fueled by baseless claims that diversity programs and civil rights laws have hurt white people, is investigating ABC’s diversity practices.
In Gomez’s letter to Disney’s CEO, the FCC commissioner said Carr’s threat showed a clear intent to use “regulatory pressure” to force Kimmel’s removal and, thereby, intimidate other companies. And she argued that ABC’s controversial decision to settle a dubious, multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit filed by Trump only fueled the administration’s authoritarian ambitions:
“That settlement did not buy you peace,” Gomez wrote, adding “you cannot buy this Administration’s favor. For the right price, you can only borrow it. And the price always goes up.”
In her letter, Gomez pledged to use “every tool available to me as a Commissioner to shine a light on what this FCC is doing to curtail press freedom and to hold this process to account at every step.”
Gomez’s letter — and ABC’s current predicament — buttress arguments made by authoritarianism experts such as author Timothy Snyder, who has warned institutions not to “obey in advance” and feed Trump’s seemingly insatiable hunger for power and compliance.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.