The Federal Communications Commission is once again trying to muzzle those who poke fun at President Donald Trump.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr ordered early license reviews of Disney’s eight owned-and-operated ABC stations on Tuesday, according to Reuters, signaling a significant escalation in its battle with the media and free speech.

A source with knowledge of the development told NBC it’s “unprecedented.” The FCC is forcing Disney to reapply for licenses that don’t expire until at least 2028.

The move seems like clear retribution for a joke that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel made about Trump’s age, in which he described first lady Melania Trump as having the glow of “an expectant widow.”

Days later, an armed man opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that the president was attending, prompting Melania Trump to demand that Disney’s subsidiary ABC fire Kimmel, who has insisted that the joke was “obviously ... about their age difference.”

The late-night host didn’t back down in his monologue on Monday, when he described the joke about the first couple as “a very light roast about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am.”

“It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination,” he added. “And they know that. I’ve been very vocal for many years, speaking out against gun violence in particular.”

“I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do,” Kimmel continued. “And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

White House communications director Steven Cheung followed up on Tuesday by calling Kimmel a “shit human being” on social media and demanding that ABC “fire him immediately.”

Disney confirmed in a statement that the FCC has initiated “an accelerated review” of the licenses and emphasized its long record operating in compliance with FCC rules.

“We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” the company said. “Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

Kimmel’s show was briefly pulled off the air last year — again after threats by Carr — because the late-night host made a comment about the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk that irked conservatives.

At the time, Kimmel described Carr as “Trump’s little ferret” who “is doing everything he can to shut us up the ‘easy way or the hard way.’”

“It’s his latest attack on free speech, and it’s a joke,” Kimmel said.

As FCC chair, Carr has initiated formal investigations of every major broadcast network in the country with one lone exception: Fox, which leans overwhelmingly to the right and is owned by Trump ally Rupert Murdoch.

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