On Friday, Fox News reported that the Federal Communications Commission was launching an investigation into ABC’s The View following the appearance of Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico (TX). The agency cited an alleged violation of the equal time statute that mandated the broadcast networks' non-news shows to allow all legally-filed political candidates to have equal time on their shows. The show also recently hosted Talarico’s primary opponent Representative Jasmine Crockett (TX) on January 6. NewsBusters crunched the numbers and found that The View gave Talarico one segment of airtime that was just under 10 minutes (9:47) long. Meanwhile, they gifted Crockett a total of three segments that totaled over 17 minutes (17:39). As NewsBusters had previously noted in our reporting of The View’s legal notes, and more recent lack thereof, the show liked to thinks of itself as just the editorial pages of the metaphorical newspaper that would be ABC News.   The View's first guest political guest of 2026 is far-left Democrat Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). Whoopi suggests it's "not going to be a problem" for her to win her Senate race in Texas. pic.twitter.com/w2W1ZK5lAo — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 6, 2026   This would make the show exempt from the “statutory equal opportunities requirement” the FCC announced it wanted to enforce last month. But the FCC didn’t seem to be buying what The View was selling. As Fox News reported, the FCC seemed to consider the interview portion of the show (for both daytime talk and late-night shows) a distinct product separate from their so-called “Hot Topics” discussions: There has been a longstanding "bona fide" exception for news programming that wouldn't require equal time for an opposing candidate, but the FCC now says it "has not been presented with any evidence that the interview portion of any late-night or daytime television talk show program on the air presently would qualify for the 'bona fide' news exemption." ABC's parent company, Disney, never made an equal-time filing to the FCC regarding Talarico's recent appearance, which would implicitly indicate to the FCC that Disney believes "The View" is bona fide news and would be exempt from the policy, the source said. And as NewsBusters reported in December with our study of The View’s political discussions with guests (a 128:2 disparity in favor of Democrats), the then-announced interview with Crockett was her third appearance on the show in less than a year. The View clearly had a preferred candidate in the Democratic primary, but moderator Whoopi Goldberg did praise the Democratic side of the Texas ballot for Senate. “So you guys, you and Jasmine, you are in it. And I think regardless of who wins this particular way -- race, Texas will be better for it,” she boasted to Talarico. If the FCC was able to enforce equal time for the candidates in that race, The View would reluctantly have to invite Republican Senator John Cornyn (TX) and the more obscure Democratic opponent Ahmad Hassan.   The View endorses the Democratic side of the ballot for the Texas senate seat: WHOOPI GOLDBERG: So you guys, you and Jasmine, you are in it. And I think regardless of who wins this particular way -- race, Texas will be better for it. pic.twitter.com/3laG0QmX3z — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) February 2, 2026