By The Editors

Written by The Editors

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

The government is using its power to license broadcasters as leverage against one it does not like, and the people warning against it are Republicans.

Trump’s FCC has ordered an unprecedented early review of all eight of ABC’s owned television stations, and ABC is in federal court arguing the move is punishment for coverage the administration dislikes. While anyone with common sense should distrust ABC, this is still an alarming action and vindictive strategy.

If a government agency can threaten a broadcaster’s licenses to punish disfavored speech, that weapon does not retire when the administration changes; it just points the other way.

What is happening

The hearing was this week. A federal judge in Washington heard ABC’s bid to block the review on Tuesday, with no ruling issued and a decision expected no sooner than mid-October (SOURCE HERE).

The review is sweeping. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr ordered an early, accelerated renewal review of all 8 ABC-owned stations, six of them in major markets, a step free-speech groups call unprecedented (SOURCE HERE).

ABC is suing over retaliation. Disney’s lawsuit, filed in August, asks the court to halt the review as First Amendment retaliation, with ABC’s lawyer telling the judge the FCC holds the network’s “head on a guillotine” (SOURCE HERE).

The fine print

• Timeline is the case. The review was ordered one day after Trump publicly urged ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, and ABC says “The View” has stopped inviting candidates under the pressure (SOURCE HERE).
• The grievance is real. ABC paid Trump a $16 million settlement in December 2024 over a false on-air claim, and conservatives’ complaints about the network’s slant are not invented (SOURCE HERE).
• The FCC claims a different reason. The agency says the review is a hiring-discrimination probe, not retaliation, a rationale critics call pretext given the timing (SOURCE HERE).

In Their Own Words

“The current FCC has repeatedly used its power over broadcast speech to jawbone, punish, and threaten censorship of its political opponents (SOURCE HERE),” said David Inserra of the Cato Institute, warning that no agency should police speech it deems unfair.

What The Other Side Is Doing And How To Neutralize It

The striking thing about this fight is who is on which side. The usual media-left isn’t raising the alarm; the conservative and libertarian free-speech world is. Three former Republican FCC chairmen, Mark Fowler, Dennis Patrick, and Alfred Sikes, joined a filing warning that the agency “seeks to censor” ABC’s speech (SOURCE HERE), with Fowler, Reagan’s own chairman, calling it a gross denial of due process.

Oddly, the people defending the administration’s leverage over a broadcaster are the ones who should know best how that leverage gets abused.

For readers who want to follow the principle rather than the personalities, the organizations carrying the free-speech argument here are ones a conservative can trust. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression signed the brief against the review (VISIT HERE), as did the Cato Institute, whose David Inserra has made the cleanest case that licensing must never become a speech weapon (VISIT HERE), and the Institute for Free Speech fights exactly these battles (VISIT HERE).

The way to neutralize a bad precedent is to kill it before it hardens, and the donor-minded move is to fund the groups holding the line on a principle that has protected conservatives before and will again. Conservatives spent the last four years, rightly, attacking the government for leaning on social-media companies to silence dissent. That argument does not get an exception when the hand on the lever is one you voted for.

Looking ahead

The question here is not whether ABC deserves criticism; it does. The question is whether the federal government may use its power to grant or deny broadcast licenses as a cudgel to punish coverage it dislikes, and the answer has to be no, because the power conservatives cheer when it is aimed at ABC is the same power that was aimed at conservative voices not long ago and will be again.

Facts are prickly things,

-The Editors

Liberty · Upstream of the Swamp · October 7, 2026

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