In its lawsuit against the FCC, Disney, the parent company of ABC alleges that Chairman Brendan Carr violated the First Amendment by using unprecedented early license renewals for all ABC-owned stations in retaliation for content decisions President Trump disliked. The FCC responds that early renewal is a tool to get Disney to cooperate in the FCC’s equal-employment/DEI investigation. But Disney argues that numerous threats by President Trump and Carr to revoke licenses in response to content decisions prove that investigations are pretextual. The real harm here is the self-censorship of broadcasters: a threat left hanging forces every editorial decision to be weighed against the possibility of losing the license.
In this episode, Robertas Bakula and Onkar Ghate commend Disney for making their case on fundamental constitutional grounds rather than settling behind closed doors. Too few of Disney’s defenders ever dare to challenge the FCC’s underlying licensing authority or the employment mandates that also violate freedom of association. They warn that Carr is trying to reinvigorate and expand the FCC’s power over speech and argue that no depoliticized FCC is possible. The only real solution is privatizing the spectrum.
Topics Include:
Disney’s lawsuit against the FCC for violating the First Amendment
How self-censorship works in practice
Broadcaster’s historical complicity in creating the FCC
Brendan Carr’s goal to expand the FCC’s power
Why defenders of free speech do not challenge the FCC and its DEI policies as violating intellectual freedom
The only way to remove the FCC’s ability to chill speech is to privatize the broadcast spectrum
Resources:
Ayn Rand, “Choose Your Issues,” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1962
Ayn Rand, “Have Gun, Will Nudge,” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1962
Ayn Rand, “Vast Quicksands,” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1963
Ayn Rand, “The Property Status of Airwaves,” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1964
Ayn Rand Institute Podcast episode “Trump vs. CBS: How Government Pressures Companies to Self-Censor”, Jul 31, 2025
Ayn Rand Institute Podcast episode, Trump vs. Kimmel: The Tribal Weaponization of the FCC against Free Speech, Sep. 25, 2025
Image credit: Potjanan Surirug / iStock / via Getty Images.