Disney, ABC file suit against Trump’s FCC for retaliation against it

Aug. 18 (UPI) — The Walt Disney Company and ABC filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday to block an early license renewal from the agency, claiming the Trump administration is attacking the company for content it doesn’t like.

While most ABC affiliates are owned by other companies, eight of the stations are owned by ABC. Those stations, whose licences are affected by the FCC demand for early license renewal, have also joined the suit.

“Acting through the Federal Communications Commission, the Administration has waged a retaliatory campaign against ABC for a single reason: it disapproves of what ABC broadcasts,” the suit said. “That campaign began in this Administration’s earliest days and has only intensified since.”

The eight stations whose licenses are in jeopardy cover New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and Fresno, Calif. They renew their licenses every eight years and are almost never revoked. The FCC hasn’t filed an early-renewal order in decades.

In the lawsuit, Disney said the early license renewal is an “existential threat.”

“The Commission issued an unprecedented order requiring the Stations to file early applications to renew their licenses — years before any of their licenses would have come up for renewal in the ordinary course and allowing only 30 days to file applications which ordinarily take months to prepare,” attorneys Beth Wilkinson and Paul Clement wrote.

The suit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court asks that the court immediately block the FCC “from taking or threatening to take any action” against Disney and ABC “in relation to the early license renewal applications.” It also asked for a “speedy hearing” and a temporary restraining order against the FCC.

Disney said it has come to court “reluctantly,” saying there is “no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats other than total capitulation to the administration’s demands.”

The suit cites President Donald Trump’s social media posts threatening ABC and Disney, in particular one from December 2025.

“If network NEWSCASTS, and their Late Night Shows, are 100% negative to President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and the Republican Party, shouldn’t their valuable Broadcast Licenses be terminated? I say, YES!” Trump said on Truth Social.

In July, FCC Chair Brendan Carr said the orders were not about retaliation, but operating in “the public interest.”

“If broadcasters don’t like that, that’s OK,” Carr told CNBC. “They can become a cable channel, they can become a podcast, they can stream online. But if you want to uniquely be on the public’s airwaves, you have to comply with those obligations.”

A recent target of the administration is The View, which Disney and ABC have argued is a legitimate news show. They cite an FCC staff ruling from 2002.

Carr has said he disagrees with that argument.

“The 2002 [ruling] was a staff-level decision that was based on representations made in the record all the way back in 2002, and so there’s a question of, is the program still the same today as it was back then?”

On Friday, Disney’s new CEO Josh D’Amaro said it’s fighting for its rights.

“We’re going to stand up to what we believe is journalistic integrity,” D’Amaro told CNBC. “And we’re not going to be told how to run that side of our business.

“I like what we do. We tell incredible stories. I think we do it well,” D’Amaro said. “And we’re going to stay committed to that.”

The suit said that the pressure against ABC “has been deeply felt throughout the company.”

“The campaign is also calculated to operate in terrorem [in fear] upon the rest of the industry: ABC is the visible target and suffers the most immediate harm, but the message is addressed to every broadcaster in the country, and the ultimate cost is borne by the press as a whole,” the suit said.