First Amendment

Brendan Carr's Vendetta Against ABC Conflates the 'Public Interest' With Trump's Personal Grievances

The FCC chairman is punishing the network for news coverage and programming decisions that offend the president.

Jacob Sullum | 8.26.2026 12:01 AM

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr (Andrew Thomas/CNP/Picture Alliance/Consolidated News Photos/Newscom)

Last April, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it was reviewing the broadcast licenses held by ABC's eight network-owned TV stations years before they were scheduled for renewal. The FCC had not conducted an early review of any broadcast license in more than half a century, and it had never done so simultaneously for all the stations operated by a particular network.

That unprecedented action, ABC and its parent company, Disney, argue in a federal lawsuit filed last week, is part of an unconstitutional intimidation campaign that has already had a chilling impact on broadcast journalism. A bipartisan group of former FCC officials, including commissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, agrees that the agency has launched "an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process" to "punish speech disfavored by the Trump........

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