On Tuesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller, wife of deputy White House chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller. The conversation turned to Disney.
Carr walked her through the agency’s options. Licenses come up for renewal every so often, he explained. The chairman can accelerate the schedule when he has concerns. He can call them in early.
The same afternoon, his FCC did exactly that.
Two days earlier, Donald Trump and Melania Trump had demanded ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel for an “expectant widow” joke about the age gap between the 79-year-old President and his 56-year-old wife. By Tuesday, Carr’s FCC had ordered Disney to file early renewals for its eight owned-and-operated ABC stations, including the flagships in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The original deadlines stretched from 2028 to 2031. The new deadline is May 28.
The agency said it had nothing to do with Kimmel.
The Cover Story, The Pattern, And The Only Lever He Has
The FCC’s filing pointed to a yearlong investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and Carr told reporters the accelerated review was unrelated to anything Kimmel had said. The free-speech group FIRE called the explanation a “fig leaf.” Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation noted Carr had argued before becoming chairman that the FCC “has no role in policing content.” Andrew Schwartzman, a public-interest lawyer, told CNN the agency had not pulled this lever against a major broadcaster in decades.
Carr has been here before. In September, after Kimmel made on-air comments about the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Carr went on Benny Johnson’s podcast and warned broadcasters they could do this “the easy way or the hard way.” Nexstar and Sinclair, two of the largest owners of ABC affiliates, preempted Kimmel’s show within days. Disney suspended him for six days before bringing him back.
The FCC does not regulate cable. It does not regulate streaming. It does not regulate podcasts. The one thing it regulates with real authority is broadcast television. Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, has been making this point for months on The Vergecast, the publication’s flagship podcast.
The pressure lands where the lever exists.
Joe Rogan, on Spotify, is outside Carr’s reach. Hasan Piker, the Twitch streamer who told his audience anyone serious about Medicare fraud “would kill Rick Scott” and once said the United States deserved 9/11, is outside Carr’s reach. Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist livestreamer who has openly minimized the Holocaust, is outside Carr’s reach.
Jimmy Kimmel made an age-gap joke. He is on broadcast television. That puts him inside Carr’s reach.
Maybe Brendan Carr Is A Dummy After All
On December 17, 2025, Carr testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. Pressed on whether the FCC is an independent agency, he told senators it was “not formally” independent. Minutes later, the FCC website was quietly edited to remove the word “independent” from its description of itself. Senator Ed Markey called him chairman of the “Federal Censorship Commission”. Two days later, The Vergecast titled its episode “Brendan Carr Is A Dummy“.
The segment never stopped.
Carr opened a national-security probe into a Biden-era cybersecurity certification program he had voted to approve, citing “potentially concerning ties to the government of China.” He warned broadcasters their Iran war coverage could violate their public-interest obligations. Last week, he opened an inquiry into the TV ratings system over gender identity content in children’s programming. GLAAD called it “government overreach.” He has described authority over content his predecessors spent decades telling courts the FCC does not possess.
He claims power he does not have. He uses the power he does without restraint.
The Price
Schwartzman has called the legal bar for denying a license renewal “almost insurmountable.” Broadcasters keep operating throughout the years-long process. Disney is not going to lose its stations. Carr is not going to take them. He does not need to.
He needs Disney to act like he might.
A license-renewal review is expensive and slow. It demands legal resources, executive attention, and programming caution from every broadcaster watching Disney. The company said Tuesday it would defend its licenses through standard legal proceedings. It did not address what happens to Jimmy Kimmel Live in the meantime.
Kimmel returned to his show Monday night. He did not apologize. He told his audience the joke was about the age difference. He suggested the First Lady have a conversation with her husband about hateful rhetoric.
By Tuesday afternoon, Disney’s eight broadcast licenses were on Brendan Carr’s desk.
May 28 is when Disney files. What happens after that takes years. What every other broadcaster does between now and then is what the order was actually for.