Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha said ABC is “begging to have their license pulled” after The View co-host Ana Navarro encouraged Floridians to vote against Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL).
“Pay attention to that race and go vote because it’s going to matter, and we can actually knock this woman out. There’s a great guy running, his name is Eliott Rodriguez, give him a look,” Navarro said Monday on The View.
“No ambiguity around this, I mean, she said ‘We can knock this woman out, go vote.’ I mean, this is electioneering at this point, plain and simple,” Concha said Tuesday on Fox News’s Fox & Friends First.
Salazar is the Republican incumbent for Florida’s 27th Congressional District. Rodriguez is a former CBS Miami news anchor. Navarro indicated that he could be closer than expected to winning the seat over Salazar.
Concha called Navarro’s effort to persuade viewers to vote for Rodriguez a “blatant violation by this network.”
Concha highlighted ABC’s classification of The View as a news program, arguing that the show’s treatment of political candidates raises questions under the Federal Trade Commission’s equal-opportunities rules.
The discussion comes as ABC is separately fighting the FCC over The View’s status as a “bona fide news interview program” and its exemption from equal opportunities requirements.
Those requirements mean that if a broadcast station gives airtime to one legally qualified political candidate, it generally must provide equal opportunities to competing candidates who request it.
ABC argues that, as a news interview program, The View can choose who it wants to interview without triggering the equal-opportunities requirement and bypassing the FCC’s rule. ABC also pointed out that The View received an exemption in 2002, and it was never overturned, according to CBS.
ABC also opened a petition, saying, “‘The View’ has welcomed your favorite guests and covered the issues you care about for nearly 30 years. Now, the FCC wants to control who is allowed on the show.”
Disney and ABC sued the FCC in August over its review of ABC’s broadcast license, after the FCC asked for early renewals. This month, the FCC asked a federal judge to block Disney’s lawsuit over ABC’s licensing.
“It’s almost as if they’re begging to have their license pulled, so they could play the martyr, so they could play the victim,” Concha said.
Concha said the situation is “31 flavors of stupid” and that Navarro will likely not face any repercussions.
“The news division is run by a woman named Dana Walden, who has donated on multiple occasions to Democratic candidates and even has held fundraisers for Kamala Harris,” Concha said.
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Walden is the president and chief creative officer of the Walt Disney Company. Disney is the parent company of ABC.
It’s a “lather, rinse, repeat,” Concha said.