How ‘The View’ Landed at the Center of a Free Speech Battle

The Trump administration’s focus on the show is testament to the enduring influence of an old-fashioned broadcast TV program started 29 years ago.

President Trump’s wide-ranging campaign to punish his perceived media critics has come for newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, The Des Moines Register and The New York Times; broadcast outlets like the BBC, NBC News and CBS News; and the late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.

But now it is bearing down on a new opponent, one that remains politically potent and has a storied place in Mr. Trump’s oeuvre of media grudge matches — the long-running ABC daytime talk show, “The View.”

The Federal Communications Commission has been quietly investigating the program for months, looking into whether “The View” violated old federal rules requiring equal airtime to rival political candidates. The inquiry could also feed into the agency’s wider review of whether ABC should be allowed to continue to own some of the country’s most important local television stations.