ABC has retained a top Supreme Court litigator and is accusing the Trump Federal Communications Commission of a First Amendment free speech violation.

In its filing, ABC said that the FCC’s actions had a “chilling effect” on free speech, specifically political speech the agency disagreed with, The New York Times reports.

At issue, the Times says, is a “minor regulatory dispute” over ABC’s “The View,” but the implications could extend beyond the single Houston, Texas station positioned in the dispute.

“The Commission’s order to file this Petition for Declaratory Ruling is unprecedented, beyond the Commission’s authority, and counterproductive to the Commission’s stated goal of encouraging free speech and open political discussion,” the filing reads. ABC alleges the FCC’s actions threaten to “upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly.”

The Times calls the filing “the most aggressive defense from any television network since President Trump kicked off an extended campaign last year to bring media organizations to heel.”

FCC chairman Brendan Carr has suggested ABC should not have presumed “The View” was exempt from equal-time rules.

“But the filing from ABC revealed for the first time the intensity of the agency’s efforts against the network,” the Times notes, “which have included extensive requests for documents and information about its operations and editorial approach.”

Variety adds that separately, “the FCC’s Media Bureau last week issued an unprecedented order forcing ABC to reapply for spectrum licenses on an accelerated schedule,” after President Donald Trump called for late night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired.

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CNN analyst Harry Enten says that President Donald Trump is as popular and powerful as ever among Republican voters.

Enten looked at this week’s results in the Indiana primaries, where a majority of Republican state lawmakers who opposed the president’s push for redistricting were voted out of office.

“As Indiana goes, so goes the nation when it comes to Republican voters and Donald John Trump,” Enten said. “He absolutely still has the juice, and when you’re a Republican and you go against Trump, you get voted off the island.”

Enten extrapolated that result to the rest of the country, saying that Indiana “is emblematic of what we see nationwide with Republicans.”

“I think there’s this myth that’s going on right now that, oh, ‘Trump is really losing support among Republicans.’ But compared to other midterm cycles, he’s just as popular with Republicans as he has ever been at this point in midterm cycles,” he said.

Enten found that at this point in his first term, in 2018, Trump’s approval rating among his GOP base was 85 percent. Now, it’s 84 percent.

READ MORE: Senate Republicans Just Dealt Trump a Major Blow

“That 85 looks a whole heck of a lot like this 84 percent right here,” Enten said. “The bottom line is this: Donald Trump still absolutely has juice with Republican voters.”

“You saw it in Indiana, and I think that you’ll see it down the line, as well, if any Republicans try and go against the President of the United States, who is still very much beloved by Republican voters nationwide.”

Enten says that the core Republican base “really loves Donald Trump.”

“The people who really love him, they’re the ones who are absolutely juiced up to go out and vote.”

“They would go over hot coals to vote in those primaries,” Enten observed, “and you saw that in Indiana, where the clear majority of those representatives who went against Trump on redistricting, well, they’re no longer gonna have a job come the next session.”

Enten continued, saying that “support among Republicans is just as strong as it was going into the 2018 midterm cycle.”

“So it’s not just that Republicans really like Donald Trump — it’s they want their leaders to follow Donald Trump, and when they don’t, as I said at the beginning, you get voted off the island.”

As Indiana goes, so goes the nation: Trump still has the juice with the GOP.

His approval with them is the same or higher than in past midterm cycles.

Most of the GOP say party leaders should follow Trump’s lead.

GOP lawmakers who mess with Trump get voted off the island. pic.twitter.com/rM4sOeZSV9

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) May 7, 2026

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President Donald Trump for months has been pushing the Senate to pass the SAVE America Act — what critics call a voter suppression bill — and for months Senate Republicans have been unable to.

Although non-citizen voting is rare, NBC News has reported, the SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, something many Americans do not have easy access to.

In March, Trump threatened he would sign no other legislation until the SAVE Act came to his desk.

“It must be done immediately,” he wrote on Truth Social. “It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION – GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: NO MAIL-IN BALLOTS EXCEPT FOR MILITARY – ILLNESS, DISABILITY, TRAVEL: NO MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS: NO TRANSGENDER MUTILIZATION FOR CHILDREN! DO NOT FAIL!!!”

Why has the president been so adamant in pushing the controversial legislation?

In April, he told Republicans that enacting the SAVE Act will “guarantee the midterms” — while claiming that was not the reason he was pushing the bill. “I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID and these things.”

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“We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race,” if the SAVE Act passes, Trump said in February. Also that month, he said, “The Republicans should say — we should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” urging Republicans to “nationalize the voting.”

Despite the president’s persistence, the Republican-controlled Senate, under Majority Leader John Thune, just shelved the SAVE America Act.

“Senate Republican leaders are unlikely to hold additional votes on the SAVE America Act, the voter ID and proof of citizenship bill many Republicans say has done more harm to the party than good,” Punchbowl News reports, noting that some Republicans see another vote as “futile.”

Punchbowl adds that shelving the bill “will only anger the party’s base and intensify the long-shot push to scrap the filibuster.”

Majority Leader Thune and most Senate Republicans refuse to end the filibuster, while some Republicans warn that if they don’t end the filibuster, Democrats will do so when they take control of the Senate.

“I completely understand my colleagues who want to maintain the filibuster. We all want to maintain the filibuster, honestly,” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Punchbowl. “But I know the Democrats won’t. That’s the only division here.”

In April, Senate Republicans couldn’t even scrounge up 50 votes for Trump’s top-priority bill.

“To Senate GOP leaders,” Punchbowl observed, “that alone is a good enough reason to move on.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Economic Agenda Is Collapsing — and He’s Running Out of Time

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