FCC investigates ABC after Kimmel’s Melania Trump joke
The FCC is reviewing ABC’s broadcast license after Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about Melania Trump sparked calls for action.
Media giant ABC has accused the Federal Communications Commission of violating First Amendment rights, amid heightened tensions between regulators and television programs seen as negative to the Trump administration.
The station’s petition, filed May 8, says FCC Chairman Brendan Kerr’s scrutiny of the talk show “The View” is “unprecedented, exceeds the commission’s authority, and is counterproductive to the commission’s stated goals of promoting free speech and open political debate.”
Kerr has previously questioned whether talk shows like “The View” are “bona fide news programs,” a specific legal classification under FCC regulations that grants them certain First Amendment protections from government regulation.
This filing is one of the most decisive actions taken against the FCC’s actions targeting news organizations under the second Trump administration.
The commission, which is bound by a number of laws that require it to be neutral and uphold First Amendment principles, has come under scrutiny for targeting coverage deemed unfavorable to President Donald Trump.
The FCC did not respond to requests for comment.
Submissions point to unjust enforcement of rules
The application was filed by ABC News in Houston. This follows months in which Kerr has suggested in public comments and online that major broadcast stations like ABC need to abide by the FCC’s “public interest” rules. The rule requires television entertainment programs on public airwaves to give equal airtime to political candidates for the same office.
Congress adopted a “genuine news” exemption to this rule in 1959. ABC said it received such an exemption for the show in 2002.
In early 2026, Kerr asked Houston Broadcasting to submit a formal request to determine whether “The View” actually qualifies for the exemption after Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico appeared on the show.
ABC’s petition states, “‘The View’ is broadcast under a bona fide news exemption granted more than 20 years ago, consistent with the commission’s longstanding interpretation of the program, which aims to minimize the serious First Amendment problems inherent in the Equal Time System.”
The filing also said the FCC’s investigation primarily focused only on shows critical of Trump, and not similar programs supporting the conservative president, such as “The Glenn Beck Program” or “The Mark Levin Show,” which have shown no evidence of receiving such exemptions.
“‘The View’ and other similar programs uphold the public interest, as Congress envisioned when it adopted the true reporting exemption,” the petition says. “This goal of giving the public the broadest access to political and racial news by allowing broadcasters to report political news without fear of sanctions is especially important today.
“As the 2026 election approaches, Americans need more access to political news, not less contact with political candidates.”
The petition seeks a declaratory judgment confirming that The View “continues to be subject to the bona fide news interview exemption.”
“Doing anything else…would further exacerbate the uncertainty and resulting chilling of the First Amendment that the Committee’s recent actions have caused,” the filing states.
The New York Times, which first reported the case, noted that ABC is being represented by Paul Clement, who served as attorney general under former President George W. Bush and is a prominent Supreme Court litigator.
Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group, said ABC’s “not tacitly allowing the federal government to dictate the range of views that can be broadcast without fear of reprisal” is “welcome and commendable.”
“The Federal Communications Commission cannot and cannot be the nation’s chief censor, as its chairman once acknowledged,” Creeley said. “The First Amendment protects private institutions that fight back against the executive branch’s crackdown on speech. FIRE will fight to stop the government from determining what we are free to say, see, and hear.”
Network and Kerr remain at odds
NPR reports that ABC’s petition comes in the wake of an investigation into the station and its parent company Disney over alleged corporate diversity policies, as well as multiple phone calls from the FCC asking Disney-owned local stations to apply for early license renewals in April.
The calls came shortly after President Trump rallied to call for the firing of ABC late-night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel over jokes about first lady Melania Trump.
Mr. Carr’s pressure on ABC “chilled critical protected speech, both on ‘The View’ and more broadly,” the agency wrote in its filing.
ABC has been at odds with the Trump administration. The network agreed to pay the president $15 million in December 2024 to settle a long-running defamation lawsuit he filed against the company.
Trump also called for Kimmel to be fired after his comments about the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last year sparked a heated debate over the First Amendment.
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Want to talk? Email Angele Latham at alatham@gannett.com or follow @angele_latham on X.
