The FCC initiated an early review of ABC's broadcast licenses following President Trump and Melania Trump's demand that the network fire Jimmy Kimmel over a monologue made before an alleged assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner — a move First Amendment advocates immediately condemned as federal overreach. Reich frames this as an authoritarian attack on free speech, which is legitimate analysis of the regulatory action's implications. However, NBC San Diego reports that free speech advocates *did* speak out Tuesday, undermining Reich's implication that they remained silent. The substantive question — whether using FCC licensing authority to pressure networks over content is a First Amendment threat — remains genuinely contested among legal scholars and advocates.