Disney Moves To Protect Its Broadcast Licenses From Brendan Carr’s Sham Investigations

from the petty-witch-hunts-by-weak-men dept

If you recall, Trump FCC censor Brendan Carr recently launched numerous sham investigations of Disney/ABC because a comedian made fun of the President.

One of those sham investigations includes the bogus claim that Disney should be stripped of its eight broadcast licenses because the company is sometimes nice to women and minorities. Another involves the false claim that an ABC affiliate violated the law because an ABC affiliate broadcast an interview with Texas Democratic Senate hopeful James Talarico without filling out the appropriate paperwork.

The inquiries are complete bullshit, but that hasn’t stopped the press from helping Carr pretend otherwise. And Disney and their lawyers have had to jump through costly hoops all the same.

Like last week, when Disney filed its application for broadcast license renewal, something an attached letter notes the company did “in protest.” It’s a pretty heated retort, as far as giant corporations go:

“WABC-TV (“WABC” or the “Station”) submits this license renewal application under
protest in response to an unlawful, arbitrary, and unconstitutional Order issued on April 28, 2026, by the Media Bureau. The Commission had not demanded early renewal in over five decades. And it has never before demanded simultaneous license renewal applications from a group of stations commonly owned with a network as it has here.

The Order has no legitimate purpose. There is no information that the application will reveal that the Commission could not obtain through other means. The Order is inconsistent with a legitimate exercise of investigative authority and is plainly incompatible with the First Amendment. Worse, the Order opens the door to an assault on the Station’s license, while the Commission searches for a legal pretext to achieve its desired goal. This effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process must not prevail. WABC files this application without waiving any rights, and calls on the Commission to rescind the Order.”

Carr’s attacks on Disney are legally incoherent. But such assaults are not really designed to win in court, they’re designed to chill speech. They’re designed to send the message that if you criticize the president (whether via comedian or journalist), you’ll face all manner of costly legal headaches.

It’s a pathetic assault on the First Amendment, and while Trump early second tenure threats have had some notable successes among the country’s pathetic corporate media giants, the effectiveness will only dwindle as Trump’s polling, health, and political power wanes, leaving Carr holding an empty bag and a terrible reputation as a cowardly zealot.

Carr’s legal efforts are in particular hot water here given that, as one previous ABC filing indicated, he appears to have collaborated with right wing local broadcasters to create the illusion that ABC-owned Houston affiliate KTRK had violated the law. It’s just the sort of thing you’d hope would result in corporations thinking twice the next time they’re keen on electing censorial fascists.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, brendan carr, broadcast license, censorship, fcc, free speech, james talarico, jimmy kimmel

Companies: abc, disney