Disney Stands Its Ground in the Face of Trump’s Jimmy Kimmel Temper Tantrum and FCC Harassment

When it comes to the barrage of nonsense coming from this White House, sometimes no response is the best response.

Disney has clearly learned its lesson from last year’s Jimmy Kimmel media firestorm, when it temporarily benched the late night host in the wake of threats from FCC chairman Brendan Carr. As Carr continues to weaponize the agency to take on critics of Donald Trump, his actions have even earned him rebukes from his own party (including Sen. Ted Cruz). What’s more, Trump’s demands that Kimmel be fired over a monologue joke rings especially weak given some of the president’s often divisive and violent rhetoric.

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After all, this is a president who wrote that he was “glad” former Special Counsel Robert Muller had died. He has accused some Democrats of “seditious behavior, punishable by death” and regularly calls his political opponents “evil” and “the enemy.” He regularly calls reporters awful names, he said nasty things about Rob Reiner when the director died and is picking fights with the Pope. And of course, he has threatened to destroy “a whole civilization” while sending profanity-laced warnings against Iran.

But Carr has not shied away from doing his boss’ bidding, the First Amendment be damned. His attempts to punish Disney by opening up the company’s broadcast licenses for “early renewal” talks have been slammed by most in the TV stations community — a pretty conservative group of executives, by the way — for being inappropriate.

“The FCC’s broadcast license renewal process must be grounded in predictability, fairness and transparency, principles reflected in the license terms Congress established and later extended. The Media Bureau’s nearly unprecedented request for one company to quickly reapply for all of its licenses – rather than utilize its traditional enforcement process – runs contrary to these principles and creates significant uncertainty for all broadcasters,” National Association of Broadcasters CEO Curtis LeGeyt said in a statement.

Of course, most of this is for show, just as Carr’s podcasts appearances last year threatening Kimmel were a bunch of hot air. Remember when threatened ABC and its affiliates if they did not “take action” on Kimmel? “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said, in a ridiculous statement that — again, I am as shocked as you are — earned a rebuke from Cruz. (He can be on the right side of history every once in a while, it turns out!)

And all of this political theater is why it’s for the best that Disney has been mostly silent about this latest skirmish. First of all, the Trump Administration’s Kimmel pile-on is even more brazen than last time (when the host’s comments were taken out of context after the death of Charlie Kirk). Mere minutes after the terrible (and criminal, let’s make it clear) assassination attempt outside the White House Correspondents Dinner, the Trump administration was already, crassly capitalizing on that awful event to campaign for their $400 million White House ballroom (and this time, with Trump supporters pushing for it to be paid for by public funds).

And then, seeing how this assassination attempt could be easily twisted to serve their agenda, the Trump administration saw an opening to go after Kimmel, and pile on an “expectant widow” joke made before the event that centered on the president’s age and the likelihood that the younger First Lady will outlive him. (And a joke, Kimmel noted this Monday, Trump continues to make himself.)

Carr’s suggestion that the investigation into Disney’s DEI practices over the eight ABC station licenses is even more disingenuous and right in line with the Trump administration’s anti-diversity and anti-inclusion playbook. Don’t like something? Blame the idea that there should be equity and fairness in hiring all people from all backgrounds.

The good news is, any attempt by the government to strip Disney of its broadcast licenses would take years to go through the courts, and you would hope this gambit would fizzle as the baseless reasons behind such a move would be made clear. “We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” Disney said in its one statement on the matter. “Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

What’s perhaps most telling with this kerfuffle is everyone seems to see through Trump’s and Carr’s attempts at getting”Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air. Even station groups like Nexstar and Sinclair, which pre-empted Kimmel over the Kirk reference, are staying quiet now. They know that if they tried that stunt this time, they’d run right into a spirited debate about free speech, and they’d stir controversy right when they probably don’t need it: Particularly Nexstar, which has seen its attempts to buy the Tegna group put on hold as states fear what would happen once a combined Nexstar/Tegna megacorp held news monopolies in several large cities.

As a journalist who requires access to execs, I don’t love when people don’t return my calls or emails — but on Monday, I sort of got it. Disney was banking on the news cycle quickly moving on (as all headlines Trump usually do these days) and they didn’t want to fuel another day of conversation as the Trump administration attempted to fan the flames. Coincidentally that night, Disney held their “Toast to TV” Emmy FYC cocktail party, and as execs in attendance exhaled over the day they had just gone through, they felt like they had made the right call.

Meanwhile, as Disney smartly keeps its mouth shut, Kimmel continues to handle this latest controversy with aplomb. “I should point out Donald Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants to say, as are you and as am I, as are all of us,” he said during his Monday night monologue, “because under the First Amendment, we have as Americans a right to free speech.” Perhaps that’s worthy of a refresher course at the FCC and the White House.