By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) – The head of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday denied that the White House pressured him to open an early license review of Disney’s eight ABC television stations.
The highly unusual reviews were announced a day after President Donald Trump urged ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
“This is a decision that we made inside this building,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said, adding, “There was no pressure from the outside. … There was no call for agency action from the outside.”
Trump continued to pressure Disney on Thurday, saying the network is making a serious mistake keeping Kimmel on the air.
“I don’t understand how he can be on air. I think ABC is putting themselves in great jeopardy, actually,” Trump told Newsmax.
Carr said the review was prompted by Disney and ABC’s diversity practices, not content that has aired.
“The FCC should not operate as the speech police,” Carr said.
Carr opened an investigation in March 2025 into Disney’s diversity practices and he said Disney submitted documents last week in the probe that he felt were insufficient. He also said he is planning to open another early review and he declined to say if a similar review of diversity practices at Comcast and NBC could lead to an early review there.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said the Disney license fight could take years of litigation to resolve. She said the diversity issue was clearly a pretext.
“This should be a lesson to every media company watching – capitulation does not mean protection. This administration will keep coming back, demanding more. The only answer is to stand up, fight back and defend the First Amendment,” Gomez said.
The top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Carr’s actions sought to chill speech and “weaponize the agency against any criticism of President Trump. … This is a flagrant political move on your part, given that the earliest license renewal is not due until 2028.”
On April 23, Kimmel, whose late-night TV program airs on Disney’s ABC, did a send-up of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, 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 first lady were rushed from the dinner following an assassination attempt.
Kimmel said on Monday that 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.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Hugh Lawson and David Gregorio)
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