FCC Demands Review of All ABC Station Licenses Following Kimmel Joke on Trump

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ordered a review of all station licenses owned by ABC, an apparent escalation of the public feud between Donald and Melania Trump and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he made at the president’s expense last week.

The filing does not explicitly mention any names or specific television programming. Instead, it states that the FCC is reviewing the network over an investigation relating to “its obligations as a licensed broadcaster” and the FCC’s “prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”

But many critics of the move have inferred that the FCC’s request is a response to Kimmel’s jokes about the president and his wife, given the anger both Trumps have exhibited toward the host.

ABC only owns eight of the more than 200 local stations that carry its programs. But the stations it owns are in major markets, such as New York City and Los Angeles, among others. Brendan Carr, a Trump devotee who heads the FCC, has repeatedly threatened to take action against broadcasters over what he perceives to be unfair criticism of Trump, and has implied in the past that he would take action against affiliates that continue to air Kimmel’s program.

Kimmel made the joke in question on Thursday, in a segment where he pretended to do a White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner roast of the president. The dinner for this year was set to happen on Saturday.

“Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said at one point.

The joke appeared to allude to Kimmel’s observations on the president’s declining health. Nevertheless, when a shooter interrupted the correspondents’ dinner on Saturday, right-wing critics of Kimmel suggested that his joke was a call for violence.

On Monday, Melania Trump said that Kimmel’s rhetoric on the program was both “hateful” and “violent,” despite the late-night host never indicating a desire for political violence in the segment.

Later on Monday, President Trump called for Kimmel to be terminated.

“This is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Kimmel responded to the Trumps’ criticisms on his Monday night program, stating that the line in question was “obviously” a “joke about their age difference, and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” The joke was “not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination.”

“And they know that,” Kimmel added.

Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic-appointed member of the FCC, decried the move by the agency to review ABC’s broadcast licenses.

“This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere,” Gomez said. “This political stunt won’t stick. Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side.”

Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, also lambasted the FCC’s move.

Said Stern:

The First Amendment and the FCC’s mandate do not permit the agency to use broadcast licenses as weapons to punish broadcasters for constitutionally protected content they air. … Carr’s decision to abandon his principles to kiss up to Trump to advance his career does not change the law that Carr knows full-well applies.

The process of revoking a station’s broadcast rights is a lengthy one, requiring the federal government to show a pattern of rules violations and regulations. Even a final decision by the FCC to remove a station’s rights would not necessarily be the end of the process — a station can challenge the FCC’s decision in the courts, during which time its rights to broadcast remain intact. The entire process could take years to play out.