Disney’s ABC asked a federal judge to halt the FCC’s early review of its broadcast licenses, calling it Trump administration retaliation even as the government ties the step to the company’s stalled response on a DEI probe.
In a roughly two-hour hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., attorney Beth Wilkinson pressed U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan to stop the Federal Communications Commission from forcing early renewal applications on eight television stations owned by ABC and its parent company. CBS News reported the licenses had been set for renewal between 2028 and 2031 before the FCC ordered the accelerated filings in April.
Wilkinson framed the agency’s move as punishment for protected speech that offended the Trump administration. Justice Department attorney Dimitar Georgiev-Remme, defending the FCC, said the early review followed Disney’s failure to adequately answer an ongoing anti-discrimination investigation into DEI practices.
Judge AliKhan, a Biden appointee, at points appeared skeptical of the government’s explanation that the early renewals were simply a tool to obtain information. She ordered the Justice Department to file a brief by Oct. 9 addressing what other legal tools the FCC has to compel the data it wants.
Wilkinson told the court the commission was using government power against the network’s editorial choices. She said the process left ABC waiting with its “head on a guillotine” and warned that certain decisions could prompt the agency to revoke the licenses altogether.
"They are retaliating with their government power to stop ABC from exercising their protected First Amendment speech,"
Wilkinson argued. She also said some outcomes could lead the FCC to “give us the corporate death penalty and take away our licenses.”
She pointed to a July White House speech in which President Trump chastised ABC and NBC for not broadcasting his remarks and called for their licenses to be revoked. Wilkinson called those comments a “direct threat” to her client and tied them, along with statements from FCC Chair Brendan Carr, to the true motive for the April order.
The network’s lawyer further claimed an immediate chilling effect on political coverage. She said “The View” had changed how it selects clips and that Jimmy Kimmel posted an interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on YouTube rather than airing it on the network, conduct that has also drawn attention in coverage of how Kimmel yanked a Texas Democrat’s interview from broadcast.
Wilkinson added that the public retains a right to hear competing viewpoints even when officials dislike the coverage.
"People may not like some of ABC's coverage and the president is entitled to it, but the public has the right to be exposed to different speech and viewpoints,"
she said.
Georgiev-Remme rejected the retaliation narrative. He told the judge the commission acted after ABC “refused to adequately respond” to the FCC’s anti-discrimination probe into DEI practices at the company.
"The commission decided to look for information that it needed by calling for early renewal of plaintiffs' broadcast license."
That was the Justice Department’s account of why the eight stations were pulled forward years ahead of the original 2028, 2031 window. When the judge asked what other compulsory tools the agency possessed, Georgiev-Remme could not immediately answer and was directed to address the question in the Oct. 9 brief.
The government also argued ABC had chosen the wrong courthouse. DOJ counsel maintained that Congress set a specific path for license-renewal disputes: appeal first to the full commission, then only to a federal appellate court. District court, in that view, is not the proper forum. ABC’s side countered that alleged retaliatory conduct sits outside that regulatory ladder and that only a district judge can stop immediate harm while the commission could sit on an appeal indefinitely.
Those process fights sit alongside other recent FCC scrutiny of Disney programming, including an equal-time case against “The View” under Chairman Carr.
Broadcast licenses are not a blank check. The FCC has long held authority to review whether stations serve the public interest, and anti-discrimination rules are part of that framework. Disney and ABC cast the accelerated renewals as a First Amendment assault. The Justice Department cast them as a response to an unanswered DEI investigation.
Wilkinson’s own examples underscored how the network has already adjusted content decisions under the shadow of the proceeding. The claimed shift in “The View” clip selection and the decision to park the Talarico interview on YouTube instead of the linear network were presented as proof of chill. Critics of the networks see something else: large media companies that spent years leaning into ideological hiring and programming now object when regulators ask basic questions about discrimination practices.
Related disputes have kept the same players in the headlines, from FCC moves to dismiss Disney’s lawsuit over the early station reviews to separate pressure campaigns around late-night television. ABC has also faced separate reporting that it was set to end “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after a long run, a claim the network has disputed.
Carr’s tenure has featured repeated clashes with broadcast networks over fairness and election-season content, including signals on guidance covering “fake” election polls and network conduct. Trump’s July criticism of ABC and NBC for skipping his speech fits a longer pattern of presidents from both parties sparring with networks they view as hostile; the difference is that ABC immediately translated that criticism into a constitutional claim aimed at freezing ordinary license oversight.
No final injunction or dismissal was described at the close of the Tuesday hearing. The immediate deliverable is the government’s Oct. 9 brief on alternative ways to obtain the DEI-related information. Until then, the eight stations remain under the early-renewal order issued in April, and ABC’s free-speech framing competes with the DOJ’s account of a company that would not answer anti-discrimination questions.
The core collision is straightforward. A major broadcast network wants a district judge to wall off the FCC. The administration says the agency is doing its job after Disney stiff-armed a probe into DEI practices. License renewal is a public trust, not a partisan shield, and unanswered discrimination questions are not protected speech.
Networks that spent years preaching equity should answer basic regulatory questions about discrimination instead of racing to court to shut the inquiry down.
