Woke Disney Sues Trump’s FCC to Protect ABC’s Public Airwaves After Leftist Network Faces License Audit * The Gateway Pundit * by Jim Hᴏft

The Walt Disney Company and its ABC television operation ran to federal court on Tuesday, asking a judge to stop the Federal Communications Commission from reviewing the broadcast licenses of eight ABC-owned stations years ahead of schedule.

Disney, ABC, and the station licensees filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., accusing the Trump administration and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr of using regulatory authority to punish a network over programming and editorial decisions.

Disney called the proceeding an “extraordinary assault on free speech” and asked U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction before the FCC can move the matter toward a hearing.

The company claims the agency is retaliating against ABC because President Donald Trump and administration officials have repeatedly blasted the network’s news coverage, its daytime political program “The View,” and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

That is Disney’s allegation. The FCC tells a very different story.

The agency says its review grows out of an investigation into whether Disney and ABC used unlawful race- or sex-based employment practices under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Disney denies violating federal anti-discrimination rules.

The dispute covers eight Disney-owned ABC stations:

• WABC-TV in New York
• KABC-TV in Los Angeles
• WLS-TV in Chicago
• WPVI-TV in Philadelphia
• KTRK-TV in Houston
• KGO-TV in San Francisco
• KFSN-TV in Fresno
• WTVD in Durham, North Carolina

The FCC ordered the stations to file early renewal applications in April. ABC submitted those applications on May 28 under protest.

An official FCC notice says broadcast licenses generally run for eight years and that none of these licenses would ordinarily have come up for renewal before 2028.

However, FCC rules allow the agency to call licenses in early when essential to an ongoing investigation. In this case, the investigation centers on whether Disney and ABC engaged in illegal discrimination through their DEI practices, hiring, promoting, compensating, and creating racially and identity-based preferences in violation of the Communications Act and FCC equal employment opportunity rules.

That probe began more than a year earlier. Chairman Carr has been clear: broadcasters using the public airwaves must serve the public interest and comply with nondiscrimination rules. Disney’s responses to letters of inquiry were deemed deficient and disingenuous. The early renewal order followed.

The licenses remain in effect while the proceeding is pending.

Disney’s lawsuit seeks to stop the review before the FCC can schedule a hearing or take further license-related action. Judge AliKhan on Tuesday ordered the parties to propose a fast timetable for addressing Disney’s emergency request and directed the agency to notify the court if it moves to begin revocation proceedings, Reuters reported.

Yes, the April order came one day after President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump called for ABC to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over his crude “expectant widow” joke about Melania. Trump has also criticized ABC’s coverage and shows like The View. The network and its defenders scream “retaliation.”

In March 2025, The Gateway Pundit reported that Carr had opened an investigation into Disney and ABC’s DEI practices, including concerns that corporate policies could conflict with FCC equal-employment rules.

Then, on April 29, 2026, The Gateway Pundit reported that the agency had ordered all eight ABC-owned stations into the early-renewal process, pulling their applications forward by years.

The network was fighting on another front as well. In May, The Gateway Pundit reported that Disney asked the FCC to recognize “The View” as a “bona fide news interview program,” a classification that could exempt the show from statutory equal-opportunity requirements for appearances by political candidates.

And in July, The Gateway Pundit cited a report predicting that the agency could move the ABC station review toward a hearing and reject “The View’s” bid for the news-program exemption. Neither outcome had been formally decided when Disney filed Tuesday’s lawsuit.

An FCC spokesperson responded Tuesday that the agency has been examining claims of “illegal DEI discrimination” for over a year.

“Disney is obviously very concerned about the FCC’s proceeding, as evidenced by their ongoing campaign of disinformation as well as their decision to ask a court to stop the FCC from further pursuing matters.”

This is the same Disney that has spent years pushing identity politics, race-based programming quotas, and left-wing narratives while treating conservative viewpoints as the enemy. The same ABC that platforms The View and Kimmel’s endless anti-Trump rants. Now that a Trump-appointed FCC chair is finally enforcing the rules that apply to every broadcaster holding a license to use the public airwaves, the media giant cries First Amendment.