FCC chairman Brendan Carr on Thursday afternoon fielded questions about his agency’s decision to launch an early review of ABC’s station licenses—and to what degree, if any, President Trump‘s calls for Jimmy Kimmel’s firing played into it.
The FCC’s ordering of an early renewal of the broadcast licenses for all eight of ABC’s owned-and-operated stations stems from an ongoing investigation, now more than a year old, into Disney and ABC over alleged discriminatory practices. The commission cited “possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”
Nonetheless, the FCC’s order arrived in the immediate wake of President Donald Trump demanding that ABC “immediately” fire Kimmel for the “expectant widow” quip he aimed at first lady Melania Trump in a Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue that barely pre-dated the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner.
“I understand that anything we do is framed as ‘in the wake of’ in headlines,” Carr said at a morning presser, “but we’ve got to make these decisions based on where we are in the investigations, and what is best for next steps in that enforcement proceeding.
“The headlines are what the headlines are,” he added, “but [concern over unlawful discrimination] was the basis for our decision.”
Carr was asked if the FCC was pressured by Trump to pull the trigger on this early license review—not only because of the latest Kimmel controversy, but dating back to November when the president said that ABC’s licenses should be “taken away,” after he was asked about the Epstein files while hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salma in the Oval Office.
“This was a decision that we made inside this building, based on where we were” in the investigation into alleged discriminatory practices at Disney-ABC, Carr said. “There was no pressure from the outside, there was no suggestion from the outside, there was no call for agency action from the outside….
“With respect to President Trump, obviously he has every First Amendment right to express his opinion” in front of reporters or via social media, Carr stated. “That’s one of the great things about President Trump, he’s very transparent. He’s told publicly his opinion, he has every right to make public calls—same with the First Lady. And there are a lot of people out there that agree with them about these things.”
Though potential violations of the FCC’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination specifically sparked the early license review, the door could now be opened to complaints about Kimmel’s speech, Carr acknowledged.
Once ABC’s O&Os present their licenses for review/renewal, “anybody can file petitions to deny. We can’t control what claims they make in their petitions to deny,” Carr explained. “Disney as part of the filing will have to come in and demonstrate that they’ve been operating in the public interest, and there is a lot of case law out there that describes in detail what those public interests are.”
