ABC filed a strongly worded rebuke to the Trump-backed Federal Communications Commission’s “unprecedented” and “counterproductive” probe against The View.
In the network’s incendiary filing, made public on Friday, ABC did not mince words in defending the talk show’s “equal time” qualifications that Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened earlier this year.
“The Commission’s order to file this Petition for Declaratory Ruling is unprecedented, beyond the Commission’s authority, and counterproductive to the Commission’s stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion. The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” ABC wrote in the filing on behalf of their Houston affiliate, KTRK.
The filing revealed that Carr had “ordered” the local station to file a formal request asking whether The View qualified for the exemption. He alleged the daytime talk show’s interview with Democratic Texas Senate nominee James Talarico violated the “equal time” rule. CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert also came under fire for their unaired interview with Talarico.
“Some may dislike certain—or even most—of the viewpoints expressed on The View or similar shows,” the filing continued, “Such dislike, however, cannot justify using regulatory processes to restrict those views.”
ABC’s counterstance is a stunning reversal of their earlier compliance with Trump, 79, having settled a $15 million defamation lawsuit with the president in 2024 on behalf of George Stephanopoulos, for which they were accused of setting an “awful precedent.”
The network stated that The View has been protected from “equal time” considerations after being granted a bona fide news exemption in 2002, which it says has never once been challenged in the 24 years since.
ABC was quick to point out that while the FCC has launched investigations into shows that are often critical of the Trump administration—like The View or Jimmy Kimmel Live!—it has notably not done so for programs from conservative commentators like Glenn Beck, Guy Benson, or Mark Levin.
“Such a clear disparity in the treatment of broadcasters that ought to be subject to the same treatment under law raises serious concerns about viewpoint discrimination and retaliatory targeting,” ABC declared in the filing.
The FCC chairman has been accused by his own commissioners of weaponizing the federal bureau to attack Trump’s media adversaries. After Carr challenged the broadcasting licenses held by Disney, ABC’s parent company, suspiciously soon after Jimmy Kimmel irritated the president with a joke, Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the Commission, spoke out.
“What we saw today was the White House called for the silencing of a vocal critic and the FCC answered that call,” she said at the time.
“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 continued, calling the effort “unprecedented… unlawful,” and “bound to fail.”
The FCC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
