The US Federal Communications Commission has asked a federal court to dismiss ABC's First Amendment lawsuit against it, arguing the Disney-owned broadcaster has failed to prove that the FCC's early review of its television licences amounts to retaliation for disfavoured speech. ABC sued the FCC last month, accusing the regulator of mounting an "extraordinary assault" on its free-speech rights by threatening to strip licences from its eight owned-and-operated local stations. The dispute matters because it tests whether a federal agency can use routine regulatory processes, such as licence renewal, as leverage over broadcasters' editorial decisions without breaching constitutional protections for speech.

In its filing on 3 September, the FCC maintained that its April order requiring Disney to file early renewals, originally not due until 2028–2031, stemmed from an investigation into alleged unlawful discrimination in employment practices at Disney and ABC, and was unrelated to Chairman Brendan Carr's public remarks about Jimmy Kimmel, "The View" or ABC's decision not to air a Trump address. ABC's lawsuit contends the true target is the content of its programming, pointing to the timing of the FCC's order, which came a day after Donald and Melania Trump publicly criticised a Kimmel joke and Trump demanded Kimmel's dismissal. The FCC countered that its DEI investigation was announced before Carr's comments on those matters and asked the court to dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, saying ABC cannot show the necessary causal link between its speech and the licence review.