Rosie O'Donnell says she won't lose sleep over the FCC or Chairman Brendan Carr as she prepares to guest-host "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", even as the agency's regulatory pressure on ABC and Disney remains very much alive.
O'Donnell made the remarks during a Monday appearance on Kara Swisher's podcast, where the interviewer asked whether she feared any FCC action once she takes the chair on the late-night ABC program. The former talk-show host's answer was blunt: she doesn't care.
Swisher framed the question around the FCC's recent moves against ABC, including an ongoing probe of "The View" and Chairman Carr's earlier threat to pursue regulatory "avenues" against ABC and parent company Disney. O'Donnell, who is set to host one week of episodes beginning Aug. 17 during Kimmel's two-month vacation, waved it all away.
When Swisher asked whether she worried about the FCC "coming after you on the show," O'Donnell replied:
"No. What are they going to say? That you can't say that?"
She followed up moments later:
"Well, I don't listen to them. I don't pay any heed to them."
That posture is easy enough to strike from a podcast microphone. Whether ABC's compliance lawyers share O'Donnell's indifference is another matter entirely.
Even before O'Donnell takes the stage, the network has already reined her in at least once. She told Swisher that she had planned to perform a Trump-related parody of "If I Only Had a Brain" from "The Wizard of Oz" on Kimmel's show, and the network shut it down.
O'Donnell described the exchange in pointed terms:
"I wanted to do that on Kimmel, but they just told me I can't, that they couldn't get permission for the parody because it's political content. And I was like, 'Well, that is absurd to me because we used to do parodies every day on my show.'"
But a source familiar with the situation offered a different account to Fox News Digital, saying the parody song "has not yet been rejected but is instead in the process of copyright clearance." Whether the holdup is legal caution or editorial cold feet, the two versions don't line up, O'Donnell says she was told no, and the network's side says the process is still underway.
O'Donnell, who has remained a fixture in political commentary and has mocked Trump on social media for years, is no stranger to provocation. But the gap between her public bravado and the network's apparent caution tells you something about the regulatory climate ABC is navigating right now.
O'Donnell's dismissiveness might carry more weight if the FCC hadn't already demonstrated real leverage over this exact program. Earlier in 2025, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued a public threat against ABC and Disney, citing potential regulatory "avenues" the commission could pursue after Kimmel sparked outrage over comments regarding Charlie Kirk's assassination.
The fallout was swift. Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, two of the largest owners of local television stations in the country, vowed to ban "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" from their affiliates. Disney responded by announcing it would preempt Kimmel's show "indefinitely."
The show returned one week later. ABC and Disney suspended Kimmel's program for six days in September 2025 following the administration's pressure. That sequence, threat, affiliate revolt, corporate capitulation, quiet return, is exactly the kind of regulatory pressure O'Donnell now claims she can ignore.
Carr, for his part, has shown no sign of backing down. In a February interview with Fox News Digital, the FCC chairman said he felt "no regrets" for his original comments and went further, arguing that local affiliates had become too dependent on national programmers like Disney.
"I want to see more of that. I think these local affiliates have become simply mouthpieces in too many cases for Disney and other national programmers. I don't think we're better off as a country for that. And so I really want to see those local TV stations actually serve the needs of their community."
That is not the language of a regulator who considers the matter closed.
O'Donnell is stepping into a hosting chair that has become a magnet for political confrontation. Kimmel himself recently defended his "expectant widow" sketch, a joke about President Trump's age, after both President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump called for his firing. Trump posted on Truth Social demanding Kimmel "be immediately fired by Disney and ABC."
Kimmel has framed the bit as humor about the president being 79 years old, not a call for violence. But the pattern is clear: ABC's late-night franchise keeps generating the kind of political heat that draws regulatory attention, affiliate pressure, and White House criticism. And now the network has handed the microphone to a performer who returned from a self-imposed exile with no apparent interest in restraint.
O'Donnell is one of six guest hosts Kimmel tapped for his two-month break. The others, Tiffany Haddish, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz, Anthony Anderson, and Jelly Roll, round out a roster that Kimmel described as a "special treat" for viewers.
Whether any of them generate the same regulatory friction remains to be seen. O'Donnell, whose recent return to "The View" for its anniversary special showed she hasn't lost her appetite for the spotlight, seems to be daring the FCC to act.
During the podcast exchange, Swisher referred to Carr as a "moron" while discussing his regulatory posture toward ABC. O'Donnell did not object to the characterization. The casual contempt for the sitting FCC chairman, from both the interviewer and the guest, captures a broader attitude among progressive media figures: that regulatory oversight of broadcast content is illegitimate when it touches their side of the political aisle.
Fox News Digital reached out to the FCC for comment on O'Donnell's remarks. No response was included in the reporting.
The open questions are real. The FCC's probe of "The View" remains active. Carr has publicly stated he wants local affiliates to exercise more independence from Disney. And O'Donnell, a performer with a complicated personal history and a long record of anti-Trump commentary, is about to spend a week on a broadcast network that has already buckled once under federal pressure this year.
Dismissing the FCC is easy on a podcast. It's a different matter when the affiliate stations start pulling your show and the parent company folds in under a week. O'Donnell says she doesn't pay any heed. ABC's lawyers almost certainly do.
