Ana Navarro used ABC’s The View on Monday to tell Miami viewers they could knock a Republican congresswoman out of office. She named the Democrat she wanted them to consider. She did it on a nationally televised ABC program that already sits under FCC review. Conservatives called it what it looked like: a cohost using licensed airwaves to work a House race.

The remarks aired September 28, 2026, shortly after 11:08 a.m. Eastern. Navarro said Florida’s 27th Congressional District is “the district I live in.” She framed South Florida politics as “a Republican on Republican crime telenovela.”

The target was Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, the Republican incumbent, after Salazar ran an ad telling President Donald Trump that some immigration enforcement had “gone too far.” Navarro sneered at the timing and said Salazar had voted for the funding bill behind those operations. Then came the pitch.

“I had taken for granted this race because she won two years ago by 20 points. And this is a district that Donald Trump won by 15 points. So, I thought, ‘okay, no point in paying attention.’ The polls have her dead even!”

Navarro said. “So, anybody who lives in Coral Gables, in Miami, Key Biscayne, in downtown Miami, pay attention to that race and go vote because it’s going matter. And we can actually knock this woman out. There’s a great guy running, his name is Elliott Rodriguez.

Give him a look.” Cohost Sunny Hostin supplied Salazar’s name and later said the same pressure was “happening everywhere.” Salazar, first elected in 2020, is a Cuban American former Miami television journalist seeking a fourth term in a heavily Hispanic district that includes downtown Miami, Coral Gables, Key Biscayne, and Kendall. Trump carried the seat by about 15 points in 2024.

Salazar won reelection that year with 60.4 percent. Eliott Rodriguez, another former South Florida news anchor, won the Democratic primary on August 18. An internal poll paid for by his campaign later put the race at 45 percent each. Cook Political Report moved the rating from likely Republican to lean Republican.

Democrats smell an opening. Navarro tried to help them take it. She did not offer a neutral news brief. She told people in named neighborhoods to vote, said “we can actually knock this woman out,” praised Rodriguez as “a great guy,” and told viewers to “give him a look.”

Washington Examiner columnist Joe Concha called it “electioneering at this point, plain and simple” and a “blatant violation by this network.” Daily Wire editor Ben Domenech asked how telling viewers “who to vote for” was not electioneering. Those critics argue ABC is acting like a partisan cable shop while keeping the legal protections of a broadcast licensee. The network’s problem is larger than one clip.

The FCC is already examining whether The View still qualifies as a bona fide news interview program. Disney and ABC have sued the commission over early license renewal pressure they call retaliation. ABC wants the show treated as news so candidate bookings do not trigger equal opportunities rules. Navarro’s segment gave opponents a simple question: if this is news, what would advocacy look like?

The law is not as sweeping as the loudest cable lines. Section 315 requires a station that lets a legally qualified candidate “use” its facilities to offer equal opportunities to opponents. FCC rules treat a “use” as a candidate appearance by voice or picture. A host talking about a candidate is not the same thing as the candidate appearing.

Salazar did not appear. Rodriguez did not appear. The bona fide news exemptions cover candidate appearances on newscasts, news interviews, documentaries, and live news events. They do not automatically bless a cohost’s get out the vote drive.

Campaign finance rules define an “electioneering communication” as a broadcast that names a federal candidate, airs within 60 days of a general election, and targets that electorate. November 3 falls inside that window. Those rules also exempt news stories, commentary, and editorials from stations not owned by a party, committee, or candidate. ABC will hide behind that media exemption.

Critics say the exemption was written for journalism, not for a cohost pointing at a map of Coral Gables and asking viewers to take out a Republican. A completed FCC or FEC case would still need more than outrage. It would need a complaint, an equal opportunities demand tied to an actual candidate appearance, proof the segment was a coordinated campaign expenditure rather than editorial speech, or a commission finding that The View is not bona fide news. None of that has been announced.

The absence of a ruling is not the same as a clean bill of health. Navarro handed regulators a clip they can use in a proceeding that was already open. Rodriguez did not wait. His campaign posted the video the same day and thanked Navarro “for speaking the truth, standing on the right side of history, and calling me a ‘great guy.’”

He blamed Salazar and Trump for an economic crisis. ABC, The View, Navarro, Salazar, and the FCC had issued no specific public reply to the segment by September 30. Watchdog groups that already asked the FCC to strip the show’s news status added the remarks to the file. Navarro is billed as one of the show’s Republican voices.

On Monday she told her neighbors to help beat a Republican incumbent and lift a Democrat. Viewers can call that commentary. Critics call it a campaign ad with better lighting. The tape is the tape.