coverage

Actor and singer Cheyenne Jackson, who has starred on Broadway and held roles on dozens of television series including “American Horror Story,” “30 Rock” and “Glee,” had never considered that he might lose his health insurance.

But in a grim moment last year, he realized he was several thousand dollars short of the roughly $28,000-annual minimum to qualify for healthcare through actors union SAG-AFTRA. Otherwise, he would lose the plan that also covered his husband and their 11-year-old twins.

“Auditions weren’t coming in. It was just a really lean, lean time,” Jackson said. “I think I just took my insurance for granted. I thought it would always happen.”

Jackson and other actors are speaking openly about struggles qualifying for SAG-AFTRA healthcare amid declines in film and television production in Hollywood, an exodus of film jobs abroad, job loss from industry consolidation and concerns of AI incursions.

Jackson reflected on the experience while on a layover Sunday in Atlanta’s airport for his one-man musical act, “Midlife Torso Tour.” He decided to offer to spotlight other union members on social media who were short on their earnings. Within 24 hours of posting about the project idea on Instagram, he had received hundreds of messages, he said.

Jackson credited his friend Kathy Bates, the Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor he worked with on four seasons of “American Horror Story,” for helping him pull through last year. He had texted her describing his plight. She called him back within five minutes and told him, “I have good news and bad news,” he recalled.

The good news, she explained, was that she got him a part on “Matlock,” the CBS reimagining of an ’80s legal drama where she stars as a brilliant criminal defense attorney. The bad news was that he would have only four lines and his character wouldn’t have a name.

“I was like, ‘Sign me up!’” Jackson said. “I was grateful, and I showed up and did my four lines.”

Bates had “really paid it forward,” he said.

Actors’ health insurance plans are typically managed by performing arts unions rather than dispensed by a single corporate employer. Producers and studios contribute to a shared health fund based on union contracts, wages and hours worked. If workers accumulate a preset number of hours or pay, they can qualify for up to a year of coverage.

But dry spells and uncertainty in the industry because of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and industry strikes have shed light on actors’ struggles to keep insurance as work dwindles. Several years ago, stories proliferated of performers losing health insurance as they contended with heart problems or underwent cancer treatment, and in recent months, actors have again aired concerns.

“I Saw the TV Glow” star Jack Haven posted a video on YouTube in September saying they were “in a bit of an emergency situation.” Haven said they needed to earn $4,000 by the end of the month to keep their insurance. In the video, Haven said they would do “pretty much any job.”

This month, former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell of “Drake & Josh” posted a screenshot of SAG-AFTRA’s health plan website showing that he needed to earn about $11,450 more to qualify.

“Do not become an actor. Do not join SAG,” Bell wrote, using a middle finger emoji and tagging the union’s president, Sean Astin, in the post.

SAG-AFTRA spokesperson Pamela Greenwalt did not respond to a request for comment. But the union has long been open about the financial effects of the pandemic and other industry headwinds that have led to lower employer contributions.

In December 2020, a group of SAG-AFTRA members sued the union’s board of trustees over changes to the health plan. Actors 65 years and older who vested their pensions could no longer count their earnings from residuals in the annual threshold. A provision allowing actors older than 40 with a decade of credits to qualify for coverage at a reduced level of $13,000 in annual earnings was also eliminated.

The union acknowledged renewed challenges during the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. The union’s national executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, told The Times that year that earning enough to qualify for health coverage had become a “real source of anxiety and concern for many members.”

At a meeting of the union’s national board over the weekend at its Miracle Mile office, Astin in a recorded speech addressed members’ frustrations about economic pressures, saying that the union is using “every bit of leverage we have to make sure working performers have a place in whatever this industry becomes.”

It can take years for members to build up enough union work to qualify for the health insurance. Some who have worked in the industry for years never do. Reportedly only about 14% of the union’s 160,000 members qualify for the union’s healthcare. Of SAG-AFTRA’s membership, which also includes dancers, DJs, journalists and radio program hosts, more than 100,000 members are actors and performers.

Miller Tai, a voice actor on the new Paramount+ animated film “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender,” said he joined the union in 2017 and had not struggled in recent years to meet the earnings minimum, having qualified for the last seven years. He feels that the noise on social media obscures the actual problem: a broken healthcare industry that is hurting people beyond just actors.

“We have a greedy system raising prices by the second,” Tai said. “This is a problem for any sector where we rely on our employers for healthcare.”

In 2027, the earnings minimum will rise to $28,933. Quarterly premiums will rise from $375 to $390 for one participant, with higher amounts for added dependents. Actors with certain credits who lose their eligibility can temporarily keep their health coverage at a reduced rate for up to 18 months through the federal program known as COBRA, according to the union’s website.

Jackson said starting over every year is tough and unpredictable even for people like him who have been in many television shows and make “OK money on residuals.” He said that although one year he might make $300,000 from acting, the next he might make closer to 5% of that amount. He said that he scraped together his minimum earnings this year by taking on more commercial gigs and acting in a vertically filmed microdrama.

“I ended up doing a few things that I have never done before and never thought I would,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s social media project now has a home on Instagram called One Job Away, and he began posting Tuesday morning. His manager’s assistants and others on his team are combing through requests, he said. More than a dozen photos of actors have already been posted, with captions listing the amount they need to make to hit their earnings minimum and describing their past credits.

“To me, it didn’t seem that big of a deal to say I’m struggling and I need to find that next gig,” he said. “But I understand why for a lot of people they don’t want to say that. They don’t want to look needy or look whatever. I do get it, but I think the more we talk about it, the less shame and the less stigma there will be around it, because it just is happening.”

Good Morning Britain’s Ranvir Singh and Richard Madeley were on hand to detail the latest headlines to ITV viewers but one news segment sparked backlash

A Good Morning Britain star sparked concerns from viewers after reporting live from Cornwall during Storm Austen.

Fans of the ITV show have been left less than impressed with coverage of the first named storm of the season. During the programme, Good Morning Britain’s Ranvir Singh and Richard Madeley handed over to Jonathan Swain to share more information about the storm.

However, it wasn’t long before people commented on Jonathan being sent outside in the strong conditions, with many saying the same thing. On X, one person said: “Tiz the season for TV reporters to be out in the wind and rain shouting at the camera. Every autumn it’s the same.”

Someone else wrote: “I think most of us have experienced rough weather before. I don’t think we need a ‘roving reporter’ sent to Cornwall to show us what it’s like. Stop the fear mongering!” Another added: “FFS, why does GMB send reporters to storm spots? Absolutely pathetic.”

One person commented: “It’s windy and raining ffs. Scaremongering #storm.” As another added: “What is the point of having poor old Jonathan Swain out in horrible weather just to tell us it’s windy and raining? Your viewers aren’t so thick that they need to see a man struggling to broadcast to understand what wind and rain is. Get him back into the studio!” ITV has been contacted by The Mirror for comment.

When the camera showed Jonathan, he was seen outside battling the strong gusts while it was raining. He told viewers: “It’s certainly not peaceful down here in Newquay this morning. There have been gusts reported of 82mph here in Jersey.

“We’ve just been speaking to some locals in the area who have woken up to window rattling, fences falling over, people posting messages saying they’re feeling quite scared.”

The ITV star told viewers that it’s been reported that 5,000 homes have no power in Cornwall and parts of Devon. He continued: “We understand some schools are likely to have staggered starts later on today.

“It is pretty dangerous just being out here on the roads this morning, so that’s quite a sensible option to ensure people can get to schools safely.”

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Speaking to one of the locals, he called the weather “horrendous” before revealing it’s the worst he’s ever seen in the county. Wrapping up his segment, Jonathan added: “This is the amber weather warning that’s down here in Cornwall. This is what it looks like, this is what it feels like. It’s going to be like this for certainly, most of the morning.”

According to Met weather, Storm Austen will move from west to east through Friday, with winds generally diminishing later in the day. However, on Saturday, Storm Boelo is expected to hit, as wet and windy weather is expected across the whole of the UK.

Good Morning Britain continues weekdays on ITV from 6am

New restrictions have stripped Medicaid coverage from certain legal immigrants, including refugees and victims of human trafficking, as part of broader federal changes to the health insurance program that are expected to force millions off their coverage.

The change effective Oct. 1 cut from Medicaid what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of people who legally immigrated to the United States, many of whom work and pay taxes, in the latest Trump administration policy to target foreigners.

The move is part of sweeping changes to Medicaid under President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax cut and policy law, with many set to take effect early next year. The Medicaid changes are projected to result in 7.5 million fewer people with health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2025 estimate.

Advocates say that without Medicaid, people will not be able to afford private insurance and will either delay care or end up in emergency rooms, adding pressure to a strained health system. For immigrants, the cuts could be felt more acutely, compounding the effects of other administration efforts to restrict their access to public assistance as part of a broader immigration crackdown.

“This is about telling every immigrant in the United States that they are not welcome here and that they should leave,” said Ben D’Avanzo, a senior strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which has pursued litigation against the Republican administration over its immigration agenda.

Refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and domestic violence are among those who have lost coverage. Green-card holders were not impacted.

Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “immigrants must be able to support themselves without taking from overburdened benefits programs paid for by hard-working American taxpayers.”

D’Avanzo said many people who have lost coverage will likely only realize when they need medical care. But for some, the change has been felt immediately.

Dwindling supplies of lifesaving medication

In Tucson, Arizona, María Chacon has been caring for her son Jesus for almost five years since a car accident at 17 left him unable to breathe on his own. He requires a ventilator, a feeding tube and daily medication, and must be turned once every two hours to stop sores from forming. Chacon said he sometimes opens his eyes.

The family is originally from Mexico and entered the U.S. on a T visa, offered to victims of human trafficking, in 2018.

Chacon said Medicaid has helped cover almost $25,000 per month of care for her son, which includes a small stipend for her and her husband as compensation for being long-term caregivers. She said doctors have explained that even if they both worked 24 hours a day, they would not be able to cover the cost of his care.

“Since that day I haven’t been able to sleep. We haven’t been able to eat or anything. We’re wondering what we’re going to do?” Chacon said.

Jesus takes medication that Chacon estimates costs $7,000 a month. The supply runs out in mid-October. Without coverage, she does not know how her son is going to survive.

Chacon found out just days before the cuts that she was losing care. She called the state’s Medicaid offices to appeal. Although she is in the process of obtaining a green card, Medicaid coverage would only kick in five years after she is approved.

Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks less immigration, said the administration “is trying to nibble around the edges” with the Oct. 1 cuts, finding piecemeal ways to curb immigration into the U.S.

Camarota believes the government should screen legal immigrants for income potential and education, reducing the number who might rely on public benefits once they cross the border.

“You need immigrants who are unlikely to need welfare,” he said, or those with high educational attainment.

The administration recently revived a federal rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.

Chacon believes the cuts to Medicaid coverage are part of the administration’s clampdown on immigrants. She said her son is in no condition to travel.

“I know that’s what he’s doing, but, as my son is, I couldn’t go to Mexico,” Chacon said.

Millions more will be dropped from Medicaid

Medicaid, jointly funded by states and the federal government, has become a political focal point during Trump’s second term. The president has pushed to root out what he describes as fraud in the program. In July, the administration deferred over $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, claiming there was suspected fraud; critics argued the move targeted Democratic-led states.

As more people are cut from Medicaid, the federal government is predicted to reduce program spending by $911 billion, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

In Arizona, officials said 29,000 legal immigrants were cut from Medicaid rolls on Oct. 1. In Florida, estimates are closer to 177,000. Overall, more than 281,000 immigrants from nine states and the District of Columbia are estimated to lose Medicaid coverage, according to KFF.

As more states implement various restrictions to coverage, 7.5 million people are expected to lose coverage by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

Without coverage, people will turn to emergency rooms for care. When people delay seeing a doctor, conditions can worsen and become even more expensive to treat.

“At the end of the day, it does raise the cost for the states because once you get these people in for something that could have been prevented, they could not go to the doctor because they were uninsured; they most likely will end up at a hospital in an emergency room,” said Carmen Feliciano, the vice president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organization.

UnidosUS partners with community organizations to help provide medical care, but Feliciano said they already are overwhelmed and would not be able to support the number of people who are going to lose medical coverage in the coming months.

“We are not going to have the capacity to serve all the people who need it,” Feliciano said.

Schuettler and Hussein write for the Associated Press.

Department of Justice says it’s investigating whether the White House press pool’s decision violated antitrust laws.

The United States Department of Justice has opened an investigation into television networks’ decision to halt coverage of President Donald Trump last month.

A spokesperson said on Saturday that the department was investigating whether the networks violated federal antitrust laws by their boycott, which followed a White House decision to pull the credentials of reporters from three news organisations, including CNN.

The ⁠networks under investigation are ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News, said Emily Convington, the Justice Department spokesperson.

“Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act,” she said of the antitrust legislation.

“The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws.”

The investigation is the latest in a series ‌of clashes between the Trump administration and major news organisations. Trump has repeatedly called the mainstream media “fake news” and frequently clashes with reporters during encounters with the press.

The action also puts legal and potentially financial pressure on the media to continue coverage of the president even when they disagree with how the White House handles them.

The networks did not immediately comment on the announcement.

The Justice Department’s move came after the television pool of five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after the administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.

The White House said on September 19 that covering the president was a “privilege – not a right”. The outlets ⁠sued the administration, alleging the exclusions violated the First Amendment and that the White House was retaliating over their coverage.

CNN is one of the five ⁠news organisations – along with ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC – ⁠that make up the primary White House television pool.

They share the costs of covering the president, take turns organising coverage, and share the footage with outlets around the country.

All of the five television networks that cover the White House, including Fox ‌News, suspended coverage in solidarity and refused to provide replacement coverage.

The White House reinstated the credentials on September 24 after US District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that the ban was likely unconstitutional and ‌ordered ‌the administration to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” their access.

However, disputes over access to specific presidential events and pool assignments continued.

Jose Zamora, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Americas director, on Saturday criticised the administration’s decision to investigate.

“The government should not use antitrust investigations to intimidate news outlets defending press access,” Zamora said on X. “The public’s right to know depends on that access.”

Oct. 10, 2026 7:06 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating whether the decision of the White House television press pool to halt coverage of President Trump last month violated antitrust law, an agency spokesperson said Saturday.

Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate U.S. law. “The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,” she said.

The announcement came after the television pool of five broadcasters last month ceased presidential coverage after the administration barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House because of coverage Trump disliked.

Messages were sent late Saturday to the five outlets seeking comment: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC.

The White House press pool, which is a rotating cast of news outlets that covers the president, has become a proxy for the wider fight over whether the president, or anyone, can control the content of news reports — a type of free speech, a pillar of American democracy.

Last month’s developments marked an extraordinary escalation in Trump’s efforts to restrict news reporters and outlets that he finds insufficiently supportive.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued over the days-long ban. It was lifted after a judge handed the three news organizations a reprieve, which is in place until Tuesday.

Television pool coverage of the White House has also resumed.

Jose Zamora, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ regional director of the Americas, on Saturday criticized the administration’s decision to investigate.

“The government should not use antitrust investigations to intimidate news outlets defending press access,” Zamora said on X. “The public’s right to know depends on that access.”

Durkin Richer and Taxin write for the Associated Press. Taxin reported from Santa Ana.

In March 2025, when California ran out of Medicaid funds to pay doctors and hospitals, the state borrowed $3.4 billion to keep the program afloat. It was, as a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom insisted, nothing new. Indeed, a handful of times over the years, the state had taken out internal, short-term loans to sustain its healthcare program for poor and disabled people.

The unprecedented move came a few months later, when Newsom and Democratic state lawmakers agreed to pay down the loan — which grew to $4.4 billion — over 10 years instead of later in the year. California’s healthcare safety net, it seemed, was buckling.

Rising healthcare costs systemwide were partly to blame. But so were several state-led expansions that made California’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, one of the nation’s most generous.

Now, with congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over 10 years, California and dozens of other states must contemplate the limits of their generosity. The problem is particularly acute in the nation’s most populous state, which spends more on Medicaid than New York and Texas combined.

“We know we can’t afford to serve everybody we want to serve in the model that we have today,” said Mark Ghaly, the former top Newsom health official who now co-chairs the Future of Medi-Cal Commission, a 29-person panel with the goal of modernizing and sustaining California’s Medicaid program for those who need it. “What can we do differently? What can we do smarter?”

The 2025 law that Newsom, a Democrat, has dubbed President Trump’s “Big Ugly Bill” is expected to leave millions more Americans without health insurance, mostly because of new work requirements. It also curbs the use of healthcare provider taxes and other strategies states have deployed to maximize federal funds. Some state lawmakers and consumer advocates have argued the federal cuts, along with rising costs, present an opportunity for the next governor to overhaul a program plagued by long appointment wait times, low reimbursement rates for healthcare providers, and volatile financing.

“If we continue to just give millions and millions into the same system and expect something different — I’m sick and tired of that,” said Caroline Menjivar, a Democratic state senator representing a Los Angeles-area district where roughly half of constituents rely on Medi-Cal.

Democratic lawmakers, who have often clashed with Newsom on Medi-Cal rollbacks, succeeded in getting him to delay a number of painful cuts until 2027 in hope that a new governor might reverse them.

So far, neither of the gubernatorial candidates running in the November election to replace Newsom has offered substantive proposals for a program that covers 1 in 3 Californians — roughly 13.6 million people.

Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator, wants to pare back Medi-Cal eligibility and has promised to end coverage for immigrants without legal status, citing that benefit as an example of “wildly unsustainable” state spending. Democrat Xavier Becerra, who has spent decades trying to expand government-funded healthcare, has promised to protect Californians from the massive federal cuts and find and cut billions in administrative waste.

Expanding coverage

President Johnson signed the law that established Medicaid and Medicare in 1965 to cover certain low-income groups, such as families with children, older people and those with disabilities. Over the last six decades, states have substantially widened that pool, most notably under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion to childless adults.

Starting in 2024, California offered healthcare coverage to all low-income residents, regardless of age or immigration status, although lawmakers scaled that back this year. At the same time, the state opted to cover a slew of non-mandated benefits such as physical therapy, hospice care and housing assistance.

“California has always struggled with wanting to have as broad a program as possible but then having to figure out a way to pay,” said Jennifer Kent, who oversaw Medi-Cal under Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat. “There is no population that we have met that we don’t want to offer coverage to, and we’ve never met a benefit that we don’t like.”

Since 2010, California’s Medi-Cal enrollment has nearly doubled while spending has ballooned from $50 billion a year to $222 billion. It now makes up more than 40% of overall state spending, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Conservatives argue the program is bloated and rife with fraud. They say the federal changes will force states to refocus resources on the neediest.

“The role of the safety net programs was just that — to be a safety net,” Hilton said in an interview. “I don’t think it’s a particularly positive boast to say 40% of Californians should be on a program that was designed for people living in poverty.”

Becerra declined an interview request.

Nelly, a 59-year-old from Los Angeles County, was one of millions who have benefited from the state’s Medi-Cal expansion, but she was initially reluctant to sign up.

For years after she left her corporate job to care for her ailing mother, Nelly said, she didn’t consider applying. She remained uninsured until three years ago, when she woke up and couldn’t see out of her left eye.

She enrolled in Medi-Cal in the emergency room. It now covers her appointments with specialists and transportation to and from. While her condition may exempt her from the new Medicaid work requirements, Nelly said, she’s still worried about losing coverage after experiencing numerous paperwork hiccups simply trying to renew.

Nelly, who asked that her full name not be used because she hasn’t told her family about her condition, said she understands not everyone on the program may need it. But, she added, “it should be there for someone like me.”

Tough choices ahead

When Republican state lawmakers got wind of Newsom’s plan to stretch the debt repayment over a decade, they accused Democrats of trying to “paper over” the state’s structural deficit.

“This leaves future governors and legislatures to clean up the mess,” stated a July 2025 memo from GOP senators. The Legislative Analyst’s Office later called the maneuver “unusual.” That could leave Becerra, the favorite to succeed Newsom in the overwhelmingly liberal state, as the face of staggering changes to a program he spent his career defending.

More than 2 million Californians under age 65 could lose health coverage over the next four years as a result of the state and federal policy changes, according to recent estimates by the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. At least 730,000 residents have already disenrolled since June 2025.

State agencies are scrambling to implement new federal work requirement rules for adult Medicaid enrollees under 65, hoping to automate as much verification as possible to blunt coverage losses. And in 2028, states will be required to charge some enrollees fees for many services, making it harder for them to maintain coverage.

Disability rights activists say new asset limits will prevent Californians from getting needed home care, which they say is more cost-effective and humane than nursing homes. Counties, deemed by state law to be healthcare providers of last resort, say they need immediate funding for the millions of uninsured patients they anticipate in the new year.

Hospital administrators have urged policymakers to help them keep their facilities stable, and the state’s most recent budget included some $390 million to assist public and distressed hospitals.

Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles treats five times the patients it was designed to serve, and 80% of patients are uninsured or on Medi-Cal. Demand is so high in the chronically underserved area, MLK Community Healthcare CEO Elaine Batchlor said, that the hospital has erected tents in the parking lot. Most emergency room patients are now treated there.

“We already have an extremely overcrowded, overburdened emergency department,” MLK Community Healthcare CEO Elaine Batchlor said. “Insured care will turn into uncompensated care, and the financial burden for that will fall on providers.”

Becerra has said he opposes the state’s recent freeze on enrollment for adult immigrants without legal status, as well as new monthly premiums set to take effect next year, saying such moves will only saddle taxpayers with higher bills for ER care.

If elected, Becerra will probably need to wade into the politically toxic debate over whether to raise more revenue, cut benefits further, or do both.

Aside from promising to find and eliminate billions in administrative waste from the industry, the nation’s former top health official has not explained how he would cobble together the tens of billions of dollars the state is likely to need just to maintain status quo.

The next governor must tread carefully, Kent warned. “When people come and say, ‘Well, you should just do this because it’s the right thing,’ ” she said, “all of those right things have fiscal consequences.”

Mai-Duc writes for KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.

Editorial decisions at ABC News are being influenced by the Federal Communications Commission’s early license review of its TV stations, the network’s legal team told a U.S. District Court judge Tuesday.

The Disney-owned network is seeking a restraining order to stop the FCC’s action, which its attorneys said was unprecedented and an attempt by the Trump White House to chill free speech.

Disney attorney Beth Wilkinson said the FCC’s action is having an impact on ABC News coverage in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, as the network tries to avoid further action from the agency that regulates over-the-air broadcast TV licenses.

“We are making different editorial decisions,” Wilkinson said during the court hearing in Washington. “We are watching everything that we do because every time we do something — even not broadcasting this presidential speech — brings out the anger in the administration and the retaliation from the agency.”

Wilkinson was referring to President Trump’s frustration over ABC’s decision not to air his July 16 speech about voter fraud. The network chose to run it on its news streaming platform. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr criticized the move and said it would be considered in the license renewal process.

Wilkinson cited Carr’s complaint as an example of how the review is being driven by Trump’s unhappiness over the network’s coverage across its news programs, its late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and its topical daytime chat show “The View.” The FCC’s action, she said, is the administration “retaliating with their government power against ABC’s right to protected speech.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Dimitar P. Georgiev argued for the FCC that ABC is trying to avoid the commission’s regulatory process by taking the case to the U.S. District Court. Georgiev said the license renewal was initiated because of a dispute over documents in the commission’s investigation into alleged discriminatory hiring practices at Disney.

Judge Loren L. AliKhan did not issue a ruling. She asked the FCC to provide further documentation on its claim. Disney will have until Oct. 14 to respond.

Trump has frequently threatened to have TV station licenses pulled when he believes he is treated unfairly on news and talk programs. He has also successfully extracted multimillion-dollar settlements from CBS and ABC after suing the networks over news content he said had treated him unfairly.

ABC is the first network to take the FCC to court over the threats.

Wilkinson noted that Carr said during a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., that “broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.” 


The licenses for eight ABC-owned TV stations, including KABC in Los Angeles, were originally scheduled for renewal between 2028 and 2031.

Carr has said ABC’s daily talk show “The View” should not be exempt from the FCC’s equal time rule that requires broadcasters to bring on opposing candidates to provide balanced coverage. Wilkinson noted that the program — which was given the exemption in 2002 — has avoided using clips of politicians during its popular “Hot Topics” segment at the top of the program.

Carr also said earlier this year that stations could be subject to discipline if they “don’t operate in the public interest” after criticisms from the White House about coverage of the Iran war.

Carr called for the ABC license review in April, days after Kimmel delivered gags about the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner attended by Trump for the first time as president and described First Lady Melania Trump as having a “glow like an expectant widow.”

The satirical remarks drew criticism after a man later breached security at the Washington Hilton event while armed with a shotgun, handgun and several knives. The dinner was cut short and rescheduled.