By Dawn Chmielewski, David Shepardson and Trevor Hunnicutt
LOS ANGELES, April 28 (Reuters) – After a joke by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel drew calls from the White House for ABC to fire the comedian, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday ordered an early license review of the network’s television stations.
The standoff between President Donald Trump’s administration and the global entertainment conglomerate is the first crisis facing Walt Disney’s new CEO Josh D’Amaro.
Unlike the last battle with Kimmel that centered on free speech, this time the FCC is targeting Disney’s track record of diversity and inclusion practices, according to the order. The review names eight ABC stations owned by Disney.
Disney has until May 28 to respond.
The FCC has not revoked a broadcast license in more than four decades and any effort by the agency to do so would typically be a lengthy process that requires a hearing in front of a career administrative law judge.
On Thursday, Kimmel did a send-up of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on his ABC show, joking that First Lady Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.”
The joke was made three days before the actual black-tie dinner, celebrating press freedom and free speech, in Washington. The president and the first lady were rushed from the dinner following an assassination attempt.
Disney said it had received the FCC order, adding it has “a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming.” The company said it is “prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.”
The stations are located in Fresno, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Houston and Durham, North Carolina.
On Monday, the Trumps called for ABC to fire Kimmel, the latest incident of the White House pushing back on free speech that has roiled the world of late-night comedy and the press. It has again placed Disney at the center of a battle among media owners, regulators and political leaders in a highly charged political environment.
During his monologue on Monday night’s show, Kimmel said the “expectant widow” comment “obviously was a joke about their age difference” that had been misconstrued. Trump will be 80 in June, and his wife turned 56 this month.
“It was not by any stretch of the definition a call for assassination,” Kimmel said.
Steven Cheung, White House communications director, accused Kimmel of “making a disgusting joke about assassinating the President” and “doubling down on that joke instead of doing the decent thing by apologizing,” in a post on X.
Senate Commerce Committee chair Ted Cruz, a Republican, criticized FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s action on Disney.
“It is not government’s job to censor speech and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” he told Punchbowl News in comments confirmed by his office.
D’Amaro, who became Disney CEO in March, must decide how to respond to the mounting pressure to fire Kimmel. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the only Democratic commissioner at the agency, said in a statement the network could challenge the agency’s review of ABC station licenses in the courts.
“This is the most egregious action this FCC has taken in violation of the First Amendment to date,” she said.
A Disney spokesman could not be reached for comment about Kimmel, who survived a previous call for ABC to fire him.
In September 2025, Carr pressured broadcasters to take Kimmel off the air. ABC briefly suspended Kimmel’s show that month over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Carr’s efforts drew sharp criticism from across the political spectrum for seeking to regulate free speech. U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing threatened to strip the agency of some of its powers.
Past White House Correspondents’ Dinner controversies have often centered on comedians pushing the event’s traditional roast format too far for some attendees. Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers faced criticism for their stinging remarks. This year’s event was to feature mentalist Oz Pearlman, not a comedian.
In 2018, Trump administration officials protested comedian Michelle Wolf’s roast of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Trump himself has declined to attend most dinners held during his presidency.
In recent years, the dinner’s organizers have opted to choose entertainers other than comedians for the dinner, including the historian Ron Chernow in 2019.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles, David Shepardson and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; with additional reporting by Bo Erickson in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio, Anna Driver and Chris Reese)
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