FCC Chairman Brendan Carr challenges Disney's claim that 'The View' qualifies as a news program

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted a montage of ABC's The View urging viewers to vote Democrat, directly challenging Disney's argument that the show deserves a news-program exemption from federal equal time rules.

Carr published the video compilation to X on July 30, pairing it with a pointed summary of the regulatory dispute now unfolding between the Federal Communications Commission and Disney. The montage, according to Breitbart, showed panel members of the ABC daytime talk show advocating for the Democratic Party and denigrating Republicans, the kind of one-sided political messaging that sits uneasily beside Disney's insistence that the program's editorial choices are driven by "newsworthiness" rather than partisanship.

Disney is arguing to the FCC that The View is a "bona fide news program," a classification that would exempt it from the federal equal time rules requiring broadcasters to give rival political candidates comparable airtime. Carr framed the question simply in his post: Disney "claims that its decisions are based on 'newsworthiness', rather than partisan purposes, and thus exempt from political equal time rules." He added that the FCC "will make its decision based on all relevant evidence and precedents."

The montage makes the "newsworthiness" defense a hard sell. If the show's editorial decisions just happen to land on the same side of every election, the distinction between journalism and campaign messaging starts to collapse.

Disney fires back with a First Amendment argument, and a 2002 precedent

ABC is not taking the challenge quietly. The network filed formal reply comments with the FCC arguing that a 2002 commission decision already classified The View as a bona fide news program, and that the question was settled more than two decades ago. AP News reported that ABC's filing accused the Trump administration of selectively targeting shows critical of the president while ignoring pro-Trump talk radio.

ABC's filing put the argument in constitutional terms:

"The First Amendment does not permit the government to sit in an editor's chair. Yet that is the seat the Commission now proposes to take."

The network also argued that nothing about The View itself has changed, only the political environment around it. "What has changed is not the program but the political climate around it," the filing stated.

That framing treats the FCC's review as a politically motivated attack on press freedom. But it sidesteps the narrower question Carr is raising: whether a show that functions as a daily advertisement for one party's candidates can honestly claim the exemption Congress reserved for news programming.

Over 77,000 public comments flooded the FCC, and Carr is unmoved

The FCC review drew more than 77,000 public comments, with what AP News described as an "undeniable majority" supporting The View and free speech. That volume reflects the show's large and loyal audience. It does not, however, resolve the legal question of whether the program meets the regulatory definition of a bona fide news program, a standard that turns on editorial conduct, not popularity.

Carr has made clear he intends to argue that The View does not qualify. A ruling in his favor could ripple well beyond this single show, potentially affecting other programs that blend entertainment and political commentary. Any broadcast show that mixes celebrity chatter with explicit electoral advocacy could face new scrutiny under the same framework.

In a recent appearance on POLITICO's The Conversation podcast, hosted by Dasha Burns, Carr laid out his broader philosophy. He rejected the idea that enforcing equal time rules amounts to government censorship. "I don't view the FCC as the speech police," he said. But he added that "we should be appropriately applying and enforcing the laws that Congress passed."

That distinction matters. Carr is not proposing new restrictions on what The View can say. He is arguing that if a show operates as a partisan platform, it should not receive the regulatory carve-out designed for genuine news coverage. The law already exists. The question is whether the FCC will enforce it.

Carr says the FCC walked away from its own rules for decades

Carr placed the current dispute inside a longer institutional failure. He told Burns that "the FCC over the last 20 or 30 years really backed away from the regulatory framework that Congress put in place." The result, in his view, has been bad for both the commission's credibility and the media landscape it oversees.

"And I don't think it's been a good thing, either in terms of our job of administering the law or the outcome that we're seeing across the media sector," Carr said.

He illustrated the collapse of public confidence with a memorable comparison: "Fifteen percent of people would eat gas station sushi. Only 8 percent of people say they have a great deal of trust" in the media. The polling source for those figures was not specified, but the point landed, the media's credibility problem now runs deeper than most Americans' willingness to risk raw fish at a truck stop.

That credibility gap did not appear overnight. It grew during exactly the period Carr describes, as regulators stepped back and broadcasters pushed further into open advocacy. Shows like The View are a product of that environment, programs that enjoy the legal privileges of news organizations while operating with the editorial discipline of a campaign rally. The trend has been visible for years in political media, from daytime television to late-night comedy, and it has accelerated as audiences have sorted themselves by ideology. Bill Maher's recent admission that Democrats won't even appear on his show underscores how far the left's media ecosystem has drifted from anything resembling open debate.

Disney's "newsworthiness" claim runs into the show's own record

Disney's defense rests on a simple proposition: The View books guests and covers topics based on news value, not partisan loyalty. The montage Carr posted tells a different story. Clip after clip of panelists urging viewers to vote Democrat does not look like editorial judgment guided by newsworthiness. It looks like a pattern.

The 2002 precedent ABC cites may have been reasonable at the time. But two decades of programming have produced a record, and that record is now the evidence the FCC says it will weigh. If the show's own output contradicts the classification it received in 2002, the classification should change. That is not government overreach. That is a regulator doing its job.

ABC's accusation of selective enforcement, targeting The View while ignoring conservative talk radio, raises a fair procedural question. But talk radio operates under different licensing structures, and the equal time rule applies specifically to broadcast licensees. The comparison is not as clean as Disney wants it to be. And even if it were, selective enforcement of a valid rule is an argument for broader enforcement, not for abandoning the rule entirely.

The dispute also arrives at a moment when Republican engagement with traditionally hostile media has become a story in its own right. When political figures cross into unfriendly territory, audiences notice, and so do regulators watching whether those platforms treat both sides with anything approaching fairness.

No formal ruling has been issued yet. The FCC has not announced a timeline for its decision, and the specific docket or proceeding name has not been made public in available reporting. Disney will continue to argue that the First Amendment shields its editorial choices. Carr will continue to argue that a broadcast license comes with obligations, including the obligation not to turn a federally licensed channel into a one-party megaphone.

The broader question extends beyond one daytime talk show. If the FCC concludes that The View does not qualify as a bona fide news program, the precedent could force a reckoning across the broadcast landscape. Every show that wraps partisan advocacy in a news-program label would face the same scrutiny. That prospect is exactly why Disney is fighting so hard, and exactly why the review matters. Courts have long wrestled with where government authority ends and First Amendment protection begins, and this case could add another chapter to that debate.

Congress wrote the equal time rules for a reason. Broadcasters use public airwaves under a public license, and that license carries a duty to serve the public interest, not one party's interest. If Disney wants The View treated as news, the show should act like it.