This ABC Showdown Is Different
NEWS | 30 April 2026
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. In September, FCC Chair Brendan Carr dangled a simple threat: Either ABC would “take action” against Jimmy Kimmel, or there would be consequences. The network promptly gave in—“Great News,” President Trump wrote at the time—suspending Kimmel’s late-night show only to reinstate it a few days later amid public backlash. Yesterday, just 24 hours after the president and the first lady publicly demanded that Kimmel be fired, the FCC went after the network once again, ordering an early review of all broadcast licenses owned by ABC’s parent company, Disney. In some ways, the situations rhyme. Both involve direct threats to ABC after a Kimmel joke, and both reveal how the FCC has been reconfigured to act on Trump’s personal grievances. But having failed in its previous attempt to oust Kimmel, the White House has now lost much of its leverage; this time, Disney has less of a reason to cave. Carr’s threat this past fall was a direct response to a joke the comedian delivered during a monologue, which erroneously implied that Charlie Kirk’s killer had been a member of the MAGA movement. At the time, Republicans were seizing on posthumous criticism of Kirk to try to censor liberal groups, and Elon Musk and other prominent conservatives soon piled on Kimmel. The FCC told me that its latest challenge stems from an ongoing investigation into the network’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, “not any speech.” But the timeline is revealing: The agency ordered the early review a day after the president and first lady expressed their displeasure with a joke Kimmel made on Thursday. (In a riff on the president’s age, the late-night host had said that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow”; the comment sparked condemnation from MAGA figures after the attempted assassination of top government officials at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.) Perhaps the biggest difference between the September fracas and yesterday’s challenge is that now the FCC is actually taking action, exerting regulatory power against Disney in a way it had only threatened to in the past. In the fall, not doing anything turned out to be an advantage for the agency, legally speaking. “A court can’t review an action you don’t take,” my colleague Gilad Edelman, who profiled Carr in November, told me. But if Disney’s lawyers think the company is being illegally targeted this time, they could sue the administration over it. The FCC says that it has a reason to review all eight of ABC’s broadcast licenses, which were not scheduled to be renewed until 2028 at the earliest. In a filing, David Brown, the head of the agency’s video division, wrote that the early review was essential to the FCC’s ongoing investigation into Disney’s “possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.” Discrimination in this context refers to Disney’s DEI policies, which the FCC has suggested might be illegal. It’s unclear what evidence the FCC has for this claim. (Disney denied the allegations and told me that it is prepared to prove its qualifications for the licenses “through the appropriate legal channels.”) Carr has long criticized legacy media: He’s made repeated comments about what he sees as a “two-tier” media system in this country, in which liberals hold the power and right-wingers are, at least in the case of Kimmel and his peers, often the butt of the joke. Yesterday, Katie Miller, a former White House official and the wife of the Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had Carr on her podcast; the episode’s title—“FCC Chair Brendan Carr DESTROYS Wokeness in Legacy Media & Disney”—sums up his mission. This mission seems to align with the president’s. During his first term, Trump tweeted that it might be “appropriate to challenge” the licenses of the major news networks, which he saw as peddling “Fake News.” (Critics at the time noticed an echo of President Richard Nixon’s threats to challenge TV licenses during Watergate.) Trump is already used to suing major networks in a personal capacity—he received a $15 million settlement in his lawsuit against ABC News in 2024, and a $16 million settlement in his lawsuit against CBS’s owner, Paramount, last year—but in marshaling regulatory power against ABC and Disney, Carr has given the White House another way to exert control over the media. Still, Disney and its new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, have some advantages. Last time, local TV affiliates essentially forced its hand. Almost immediately after Carr’s initial comments about Kimmel in the fall, the conservative broadcasters Nexstar and Sinclair said they’d begin replacing Kimmel’s show with other programming. The groups reportedly control more than 25 percent of ABC affiliates across the country and represent 23 percent of all American households. This week, neither Nexstar nor Sinclair nor any other ABC partners have announced plans to replace Kimmel’s show—giving ABC the freedom, at least for now, to push back without the same kind of immediate pressure to acquiesce to the administration. Disney emerged stronger from its last tangle with the FCC. The first attack on Kimmel was ultimately good for ratings: The show’s total viewership rose 22 percent this year, and viewers in the coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic spiked by 45 percent. The institution of late-night comedy has been in decline for decades; ironically, the president may have something to do with keeping Kimmel on the air. But whether Disney comes out on top again may not matter to the White House. Even if this challenge to the company’s licenses doesn’t succeed in the long run, it will create a legal and logistical headache for a longtime enemy of the Trump administration. That may be precisely the point. Related: Here are four new stories from The Atlantic: Today’s News The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map, ruling that the state improperly used race to create a second majority-Black district after a lower court had ordered lawmakers to add one under the Voting Rights Act. This decision could make challenging voting maps on racial-discrimination grounds harder and may affect redistricting battles ahead of the midterm elections. The Senate Banking Committee advanced Kevin Warsh’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve in a party-line vote, putting him on track to chair the Fed after Jerome Powell’s term ends on May 15. A top Pentagon official told Congress that the U.S. war with Iran has cost about $25 billion so far, and most expenses have been tied to munitions, military operations, and equipment replacements. Evening Read Macall Polay / Walt Disney Studios / Everett Miranda Priestly Hangs Up Her Own Coat Now By David Sims The Devil Wears Prada took place amid the glorious roar of capitalism. The hit 2006 comedy took place in a world where magazines were still triumphant, with Runway, a fictional, Vogue-esque publication the film was centered on, sitting firmly atop the heap. The only concern was whether Andy Sachs, a plucky aspiring journalist played by Anne Hathaway, could survive working as the assistant to Runway’s imperious editor in chief, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), without totally losing her sense of self. But in The Devil Wears Prada 2, Hollywood’s latest nostalgia-baiting follow-up film, the crisis is no longer personal—it’s existential. Read the full article. More From The Atlantic Culture Break Illustration by Nada Hayek Rock on. Jack Hamilton explores the lost idealism of heartland-rock music and how to reclaim the genre’s misunderstood message. Watch. In December, Sophie Gilbert and Shirley Li recommended the 14 best TV shows of 2025. Play our daily crossword. Explore all of our newsletters here. Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
Author: Will Gottsegen.
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