FCC orders early license renewal for ABC stations following Kimmel's first lady joke

First lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump attend the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C, on April 25, 2026. Mandel Ngan/AFP via hide caption toggle caption Mandel Ngan/AFP via The Federal Communications Commission has ordered The Walt Disney Company's ABC to seek early broadcast license renewals for the eight TV stations it owns. The move follows criticism from first lady Melania Trump who objected to a joke about her made by late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel. President Trump followed up with a social media post calling for Kimmel to be fired . As the early license renewal order went out, FCC Chair Brendan Carr criticized ABC's parent company, Disney. Speaking on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller – whose husband is White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – Carr said there are multiple ways the FCC can handle broadcast licenses. "You can accelerate when a license comes due and say, 'hey, we have significant concerns with the value of conducting your operations. We want to review your license now and decide if you're in the public interest,'" Carr said. …