The FCC Is Waging a Censorship Campaign Against Disney, a Commissioner Confirms

Key Takeaways

• FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez wrote directly to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro on May 11, 2026, naming what the agency has done to ABC and its stations as a "sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control."
• The letter documents five separate regulatory actions against Disney since ABC's $15 million settlement with Trump in late 2024, including a revived debate complaint, a DEI investigation demanding 11,000+ pages of documents, a sham View investigation, pressure to remove Jimmy Kimmel, and an early license renewal order not used in over 50 years.
• Twelve US senators separately wrote to FCC Chair Brendan Carr demanding the early license renewal order be rescinded, noting it came one day after Trump publicly demanded ABC fire Kimmel.
• Gomez's letter argues the process itself is the punishment and urges Disney to fight rather than capitulate, telling Disney it cannot buy this administration's favor.

The $15 Million That Bought Nothing

In late 2024, ABC agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the incoming president. Whatever legal calculus went into that decision, Commissioner Anna Gomez's letter to Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro is blunt about what it accomplished: it told the administration that pressure works, and it opened the door to everything that followed.

The settlement did not buy Disney peace. It bought time, with the price going up at every step. Within months, a previously dismissed complaint about ABC's moderation of the 2024 presidential debate was revived by this FCC despite agency staff having found it contrary to the First Amendment. The FCC then opened a sweeping DEI investigation demanding a full accounting of Disney's diversity policies and practices, with Disney producing over 11,000 pages of documents to date. Courts have repeatedly found this kind of investigation by a licensing authority unconstitutional, a point Gomez makes with considerable patience for an agency that appears uninterested in its own legal history.

A Pattern Documented in Real Time

From there, the FCC launched an investigation into The View over an alleged equal opportunities violation, issuing new interpretive guidance specifically designed to create fresh exposure for broadcasters it wanted to target. Gomez's February 2026 statement on the View investigation called it what it was: government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation.

Then came Kimmel. The administration pushed Disney to remove him from the air. Disney pulled the show. Public backlash forced reinstatement, which the administration apparently did not anticipate. The double standard is documented in Gomez's letter: other broadcasters aired the same candidate appearances and received no inquiry, no letter, and no investigation.

Meanwhile, ABC affiliates in Texas were allegedly pressured by the FCC to file late equal opportunities notices, offered amnesty for doing so, and then had those very filings used against them. It mirrors the kind of administrative targeting the administration has used against foreign press through different mechanisms. And as Gomez writes, citing Justice Gorsuch citing Justice Marshall, "The value of a sword of Damocles is that it hangs, not that it drops."

Eight Licenses and a 50-Year Precedent

On April 28, 2026, the FCC directed all eight of Disney's ABC-owned local television stations to file for early license renewal within 30 days, by May 28, covering New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, and Fresno. The order itself cites ongoing DEI compliance concerns. What it omits is that this mechanism has not been invoked against a major broadcaster in more than half a century and that some of these licenses were not due for renewal for nearly five years.

It also omits the timing. Donald and Melania Trump publicly demanded ABC fire Kimmel on April 27. The FCC issued the early renewal order on April 28, reportedly surprising career FCC staff. Twelve senators, led by Senator Markey, wrote to Chair Brendan Carr demanding the order be rescinded and asking whether the White House communicated with the FCC in the days before it was issued. Carr cited only the DEI investigation in response.

I find it genuinely difficult to read the timeline any other way. This is a federal regulator deployed not to protect the public interest but to punish a company for refusing to fire a comedian. And as the pattern of regulatory pressure across platforms shows, the chilling effect is the intended outcome long before any license is actually touched.

Disney Has Won This Fight Before

Gomez's letter closes with something that is not a comfort but is at least a fact: Disney keeps its licenses throughout any challenge. The legal process will be lengthy, and if the FCC produces an unfavorable outcome, Disney can contest it in federal court for years. The agency knows this and it doesn’t care, because the goal is the process itself, not revoking the licenses. And the fact that this verdict comes from a sitting FCC commissioner, not an outside critic, says more about the state of the agency than a dozen press releases could.

Gomez reminds Disney that it has faced a government coming at it with full force before, when Florida targeted the company directly, and it won. The First Amendment does not belong to this administration to grant or withhold. That much is true.

And yet the industry watching from the sidelines has been conspicuously quiet. Twelve senators have put their names to a letter demanding Carr explain himself. One commissioner has formally documented the campaign in writing to the target. The paper trail now exists. The question is whether other broadcasters are willing to treat that paper trail as the evidence it is or whether they wait to see if the sword drops on someone else first.