Dorothy

The FCC did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment. In March 2025, FCC Chair Brendan Carr launched a probe into whether Disney was still engaging in DEI policies that the Trump administration has tried to crack down on through a series of executive orders.

The BBC has contacted the FCC for comment. Disney and its eight owned-and-operated TV stations are plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday against FCC and its chairman.

But the notice for early renewal of licence from the FCC came a day after ABC's late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about first lady Melania Trump.

ABC specifically has found itself in the crosshairs of FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who used license authority to pressure the network to remove late-night host Jimmy Kimmel from the air briefly last year following a critical monologue about Trump and Republicans following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie

The early review was launched in the midst of a heated feud between ABC’s late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel and President Trump, after Kimmel joked that First Lady Melania Trump had a “glow like an expectant widow” after two assassination attempts on the president – and just days before a third.

“If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government,” ABC wrote in the lawsuit.

“The consequences of the Administration’s campaign against free speech reach well beyond ABC,” it said. “If the Administration gets its way, the message to every media company in the country will be unmistakable: tell only the stories the Administration deems favorable, or face the coercive machinery of the federal government. In such a world, the press could in no way be described as free.”

“Facing this existential threat,” it added, “Plaintiffs have no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch for the Administration’s blatant retaliation for their First Amendment speech.”

The unusual request came after President Donald Trump had repeatedly suggested that networks giving him "negative coverage" should have their broadcast licenses "terminated."

In the same social media post, Trump also questioned whether their broadcast licences should "be terminated", and answered his own question: "I say, Yes!".

In the lawsuit, Disney calls the order by the FCC "unprecedented", saying that before then the commission had not called for early renewal in over 50 years.