(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, continued his longstanding battle with the Disney-owned ABC network last week, denouncing its DEI practices and blatantly partisan programming.
Carr — who found himself at the center of controversy last year for allegedly pressuring the network to fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over his offensive, victim-blaming remarks about Charlie Kirk — singled out daytime talk show “The View” for a recent display of bias over the implosion of alleged Nazi rapist Graham Platner’s senatorial campaign.
ABC is arguing to the FCC that The View is a “bona fide news program”—just like Meet the Press—and thus exempt from the political equal opportunity rules.
The View’s Sonny Hostin:
“We’re in an existential crisis. We need to flip the Senate.” pic.twitter.com/GoH2lT3RTC
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) July 9, 2026
“ABC is arguing to the FCC that The View is a ‘bona fide news program’—just like Meet the Press—and thus exempt from the political equal opportunity rules,” Carr wrote in a post Thursday, accompanied by a clip from the Media Research Center of “View” co-host Sunny Hostin saying, “We’re in an existential crisis. We need to flip the Senate.”
Hostin’s comment came as she sought to justify support for Platner, even while acknowledging that he had a troubling history.
Although the New York Times already had run a story on Platner’s skeletons, with damning accounts from multiple women, many of his supporters on the Left dismissed it because the primary source was a conservative.
However, with just days left for Platner to withdraw from the ballot, Politico ran a second story with an even more graphic account of forcible rape that led many Democrats to spontaneously withdraw their support.
The example of Hostin and her co-hosts using openly partisan talking points in their discussion of Platner was just one egregious example of the show’s routine bias.
Carr went on to announce during a CNBC interview on Friday that he planned to require an early renewal of Disney’s ABC broadcast licenses, citing specifically their DEI practices.
“Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows,” he said, in what may have been a nod to the ladies of “The View.”
“You have to comply with certain public-interest obligations to get them and to maintain them and to renew them,” Carr added. “We’ve called in Disney’s ABC licenses early for early renewal. That’s pending before the FCC.”
🚨 NOW: Trump FCC Chair Brendan Carr is officially CALLING IN EARLY Disney's ABC licenses after their DEI practices were scrutinized
ABC should reverse course NOW! DEI is DOA!
"Broadcast licenses are not sacred cows. You have to comply with certain public interest obligations… pic.twitter.com/O3AFABp1oj
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 10, 2026
Carr said that the agency had received complaints seeking to deny the Big-3 network its renewal, although he did not elaborate on the details or sources of those complaints, nor whether they related to the earlier Kimmel scandal.
“Ultimately, if Disney has not been operating its ABC TV stations in the public interest over the last several years, then that’s a pretty long putt for them,” he said.
“But ultimately, we’ve not made our decision yet,” he added. “We’ll be guided based on the record before us — but of course we’re open-minded to that type of outcome.”
President Donald Trump sued ABC News in December 2024 over a defamatory claim from anchor George Stephanopoulos that he had been convicted of rape in the E. Jean Carroll case.
The Manhattan jury in the civil suit concluded that Trump should be accountable for “sexual assault,” a minor offense that required a much lower standard of proof, based on the serial accuser’s hazy claim of a sexual encounter several decades prior.
ABC settled its lawsuit for $16 million, including $1 million in legal fees and $15 million to be directed to Trump’s presidential library.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
