The sole Democrat on the Federal Communications Commission slammed the federal agency for challenging Disney’s ABC licenses over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks on Melania Trump, calling it an attack on free speech.
Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was appointed during the Biden administration, responded to an FCC order on Tuesday to launch an early review of the eight TV stations owned by ABC.
The order came shortly after President Donald Trump, 79, and the first lady, 56, called for Kimmel to be “immediately” fired for joking during a late-night monologue about her having the “glow of an expectant widow.”
Kimmel framed the remarks, which he delivered on his show Thursday, April 23, two days before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, as a jab at the aging president’s health. But Trump said it was a “despicable call to violence.”
The FCC order comes during an especially volatile stretch for U.S. politics, marked by the 2024 assassination attempt on Trump and the killing of Democrat Melissa Hortman last June.
Speaking to MS NOW’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday night, Gomez described the probe as a politically motivated move against Kimmel, with whom Trump has regularly clashed.
“What we saw today was the White House called for the silencing of a vocal critic and the FCC answered that call,” said Gomez.
“What the FCC did today was it issued an order to renew, to start the renewal process for Disney-owned local broadcast stations, and that renewal process is years in advance of when that was supposed to happen, but this is all just as an excuse in order to retaliate against voices that this administration opposes,” Gomez continued.
“This is an outrageous assault on the freedom of speech by this FCC in order to retaliate against Disney and against the critics of this administration,” she went on, calling the effort “unprecedented… unlawful,” and “bound to fail.”
“So Disney should push back because Disney has the First Amendment on its side and it will win against this FCC action,” Gomez said.
Gomez said it is ironic that the probe is an action taken to retaliate against “a bit about an event that is about honoring freedom of speech,” but “is instead being used as an excuse to curtail that very freedom.”
“It’s absolutely antithetical to what our First Amendment is all about,” she added.
Gomez accused the Trump administration of weaponizing the FCC “to curtail our freedoms.”
ABC previously pulled Kimmel off the air over remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University. Kimmel’s show was temporarily suspended on Sept. 18 in the aftermath of Kirk’s fatal shooting following controversy over his monologue, in which he referenced Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect in the killing.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said at the time.
His show returned to the air five days later.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
