Stephen Miller’s Wife Uncovered Exactly What Happens to Disney’s License After the Horrific Thing Kimmel Told Melania
Melania Trump was evacuated from a ballroom at gunpoint – and Jimmy Kimmel called it a punchline.
Three days before a gunman rushed the White House Correspondents' Dinner with a shotgun, Kimmel joked on-air that Melania had the glow of "an expectant widow."
Now the man who controls Disney's broadcast future just explained what comes next – and he said it directly to the wife of the most powerful immigration architect in Washington.
Brendan Carr Explains How the FCC Early License Review Works Against Disney
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sat down with Katie Miller – conservative podcast host and wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – and didn't mince words.
"There's lots of options," Carr told her. "You have a license. The licenses come to you every so often. You can accelerate when a license comes to you and say, hey, we have significant concerns with the value of conducting your operations."
The key phrase: accelerate.
Disney's ABC stations aren't up for renewal for years. But Carr confirmed on camera what the FCC has been signaling for months – they don't have to wait. The Commission can pull a broadcaster into an early review the moment it decides there are "significant concerns." And if a licensee is found to have failed the public interest standard, the statute requires a hearing designation order – the formal step that puts a broadcaster's entire future on the table.
Every ABC affiliate Disney owns will now have to make the case to Carr that it has been serving the public interest. That's the mechanism. That's the trap door.
The FCC Already Forced Disney to Pull Kimmel Once — Now ABC Is Getting Called In Again
Carr has been building this case since he took the chair. He launched an FCC investigation into Disney's DEI hiring practices, warning that race- and gender-based quotas could "fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license."
When Kimmel made comments last year following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Carr pressured ABC directly. Disney suspended Kimmel's show. Nexstar and Sinclair – two of the country's largest ABC affiliate owners – preemptively pulled it from their lineups. A public backlash eventually forced the show back on the air less than a week later.
Kimmel has now done it again. His April 23 skit – aired two days before a gunman stormed the Correspondents' Dinner – joked that Melania had the look of a woman waiting for her husband to die. Melania fired back on X, calling Kimmel "a coward" and demanding ABC "take a stand." Trump called it "a despicable call to violence" and demanded Kimmel's immediate firing. Karoline Leavitt said from the briefing room podium that rhetoric like Kimmel's has "led crazy people to believe crazy things."
Kimmel went on Monday night and called it "a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am." He refused to apologize.
Disney Finds Out What Comes After a Second Strike
What Carr is doing now, Nixon could only dream about. In 1972, Nixon worked through back channels to challenge the Washington Post's broadcast licenses – and it went nowhere. Trump's first-term FCC chair, Ajit Pai, flatly said the agency lacked authority to revoke licenses over news content and walked away.
Carr is doing something different. He has spent the past year methodically building parallel tracks – DEI violations, public interest standards, equal-time rules against The View, a 60 Minutes probe, an SNL investigation – each one a separate lever capable of triggering a hearing designation order.
A hearing designation order doesn't need to end in revocation to destroy a broadcaster. It triggers a yearslong administrative proceeding that costs tens of millions to contest and freezes every license transfer, every merger, every acquisition Disney wants to make until it's resolved. Disney is already under a new CEO after Bob Iger's departure last month – Josh D'Amaro inherited this fight on day one.
Kimmel going back on the air a second time is the tell. Disney calculated that the public backlash from pulling the show cost more than the regulatory heat. Carr just changed the price on Katie Miller's podcast – and everyone in that building in Burbank heard it.
Jimmy Kimmel has now called Melania Trump an "expectant widow" – days before someone actually tried to kill her husband. Whether that costs him his network depends on whether Disney thinks the FCC is bluffing for the third time.
Sources:
- Fox News Digital, "FCC to call in Disney stations for early license review in wake of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel controversy," Fox News, April 28, 2026.
- Semafor, "FCC prepares review of Disney's TV licenses," Semafor, April 28, 2026.
- Variety, "Jimmy Kimmel Defends 'Expectant Widow' Joke After Donald and Melania Trump Demand ABC Fire Him," Variety, April 28, 2026.
- CNN Politics, "Trump calls on ABC to fire Kimmel after he joked Melania was an 'expectant widow,'" CNN, April 27, 2026.
- Communications Daily, "Carr: FCC Investigation of Discrimination at Disney Could Involve 'Character' Issues," Communications Daily, March 19, 2026.
