Senate Democrats press top media regulator Brendan Carr to back off ABC

A group of prominent Senate Democrats sent a letter on Thursday to Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned Federal Communications Commission chair, asking him to rescind the US media regulator’s order last week requiring ABC to apply early to renew its television licenses. The eight ABC-owned station licenses were not originally up for renewal until 2028 at the earliest and 2031 at the latest; now, the renewal requests must be filed by the end of May. Although Carr told reporters that the early license renewal request stemmed from an ongoing investigation into the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts of ABC parent company Disney , the announcement came just a day after the president and his wife called on the network to fire Jimmy Kimmel , the late-night comedian, for a poorly timed joke. The letter called the early renewal demand an “extraordinary abuse of power” and an “unconstitutional abuse of the Commission’s powers”. “The campaign against Disney and its editorial decision-making, culminating in last week’s early-renewal order, is an egregious abuse of power and a clear violation of the First Amendment,” lawmakers state in the letter led by Senators Edward J Markey, Chuck Schumer, Maria Cantwell and Ben Ray Luján. Eight other senators also signed the letter. …