The View Goes Hard at Trump’s FCC in Fiery On Air Message: They Want to ‘Control’ the Guests You See

ABC ran a direct appeal to the audience of The View on Monday, urging viewers to tell President Donald Trump’s FCC to leave the contents of the program alone.

Controversial FCC Chairman Brendan Carr launched an investigation into The View earlier in the year, alleging that the program violated the FCC’s equal time rules for political candidates.

“Disney has a program called The View. And they’ve been asserting the position that The View is what is known as ‘bona fide news’ in the statute. If you are bona fide news, you don’t have to give candidates equal air time,” Carr told Fox News in mid-February while discussing his investigation. “But Disney and The View have not established that that program is, in fact, bona fide news. We’ve started enforcement proceedings, taking a look at that.”

“The View has welcomed your favorite guests and covered the issues you care about for nearly 30 years,” a voice-over says in the 20-second spot, adding, “Now, the FCC wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show.”

Carr asked the public to weigh in on whether or not The View should be exempt from the FCC’s equal time rule, which most political shows that cover the news are. Notably, the FCC only has jurisdiction over broadcast licenses so cable news does not fall under its purview.

The View has found some surprising defenders in recent weeks, including on the right, who warn that should the FCC intervene in the show’s programming, it would set a dangerous precedent that could harm conservative media as well.

Glenn Beck last month made the case that The View should be left alone. “Nobody wanted to do political talk back in the day because you had to balance absolutely everything, and it was just too much of a headache, okay?” Beck explained, adding:

The other way to balance it is if you combined MSNBC and Fox, and every other hour it was a leftist and then somebody on the right, and then a leftist and then the right. Nobody would listen to that. And so radio just did not engage, generally speaking. Local radio just didn’t engage in any of that stuff, okay? The issue involves an FCC investigation.

Now, listen to this: it involves an FCC investigation into whether talk show The View qualifies for an exemption to the agency’s equal time political rule. That’s totally legitimate for the FCC to launch an investigation to see if it fits. What is the rule? The rule is equal time. You have to have—if you’re not a news program—the law stipulates: if you’re a broadcast person (this is not involving anything on cable or on the internet, but on broadcast radio or television), if you’re a news show, you don’t have to have both sides on because it’s news. It’s breaking every day, it’s changing every day. We have a hard enough time booking guests for a subject.

Imagine having to book a guest that has the opposite view of everything you’re just covering. It would stop news from happening. So that’s the rule. ABC claims that The View is a news show. I don’t watch The View. I never have watched The View. I have only watched the clips of The View because, for the love of everything that is good and sacred, little baby Jesus cannot save my soul from darkness if I watch that thing every day, okay? I just couldn’t take it. My head would explode. So I don’t know for sure, but from the clips that I have seen over the years, I would say that’s a news show.

Watch the spot above.

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