Disney Sues FCC, Claims Trump Administration Retaliated Against ABC Over Kimmel and DEI Probes

Disney and ABC went to federal court in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, asking a judge to stop the Federal Communications Commission from moving forward with an accelerated license renewal process for eight ABC-owned television stations.

The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of running what it calls a "retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts," according to the complaint cited by NBC News and CNN. Disney's lawyers, Beth Wilkinson and Paul Clement, argue the campaign "began in this Administration's earliest days and has only intensified since."

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr ordered the early renewal in April, years before the eight stations' licenses were originally due between 2028 and 2031, according to Fox News. The stated basis was a review of Disney's diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which the FCC has scrutinized since last year over potential violations of the Communications Act of 1934, according to CNBC.

That review process landed in the middle of a separate fight over ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. In September 2025, Disney pulled Kimmel off the air temporarily after Carr publicly pressured the network over Kimmel's remarks about the man authorities say killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to NBC News. President Trump has repeatedly attacked ABC and other networks on social media, including a post cited in the lawsuit complaining that late-night hosts are "almost 100% Negative" toward him and asking whether their licenses should "be terminated."

Carr has pushed back on the idea that timing equals retaliation. He told CNBC in July that the license actions were about operating "in the public interest," not punishing speech, adding: "If broadcasters don't like that, that's okay."

Disney and ABC want the D.C. District Court to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction blocking the FCC "from taking or threatening to take any action" tied to the early renewal applications, according to the complaint reviewed by CNBC and NBC News. The filing says the FCC gave the stations only 30 days to prepare applications that "ordinarily take months," and the companies are requesting a "speedy hearing."

CNN's reporting adds important context on scale: FCC licenses are typically renewed every eight years and are almost never revoked outright. Until this year, the FCC had not issued an early-renewal order in decades, CNN reported. Only eight of the more than 200 ABC-affiliated stations nationwide are directly owned by Disney, and those are the only ones caught up in this dispute.

The Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog that petitioned the FCC to block ABC's license renewals, argues the network has treated its broadcast licenses "like permanent entitlements rather than privileges conditioned on serving the public interest," according to MRC President David Bozell, quoted by NewsBusters. Bozell's underlying point is not unreasonable on its face: broadcast spectrum is publicly owned, and license renewal has always come with public-interest conditions, including nondiscrimination rules. The MRC says it submitted more than 2,400 pieces of evidence alleging bias and rule violations tied to ABC programming, including "The View."

That is a legitimate regulatory question independent of the Kimmel fight: does ABC's DEI practices or programming choices violate FCC nondiscrimination rules? No court or the FCC itself has ruled that ABC broke any law. The DEI investigation into Disney's stations is ongoing, and no findings of illegal discrimination have been announced.

Where critics like CNN and NBC News push back is on sequencing. The DEI probe predates the Kimmel suspension, but the early-renewal order arrived within days of the Kimmel standoff, and Trump's own posts explicitly tie network criticism to license threats. Disney's lawsuit leans on that timeline and on Trump's public statements as direct evidence of retaliatory motive, not just an inference.

NewsBusters, notably, frames the lawsuit as "desperate," arguing Disney and ABC are dodging legitimate scrutiny rather than fighting a First Amendment violation. That is one read of the same facts everyone else is reporting, not a different set of facts. No outlet in this set disputes the core timeline: the DEI probe started last year, the early-renewal order came in April, and the lawsuit was filed Tuesday.

No court has ruled on Disney's First Amendment claim, and no restraining order has been granted as of Tuesday's filing. The FCC has not responded publicly to the lawsuit, according to Fox News, NBC News, CNBC and ua.news, all of which reported the agency did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The case now sits with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which will decide whether to grant the temporary restraining order Disney requested. Disney shares were roughly flat in Tuesday trading, up about 0.4% at the open, according to Stocktwits, suggesting investors are not yet pricing in a serious threat to the company's broadcast operations.