A federal judge appeared to take a pointed swipe at the Trump administration during a court hearing this week, according to a Wall Street Journal reporter who observed the proceedings, telling a lawyer for the opposing side that she did not "want to be here either."

The Walt Disney Company is suing the Federal Communications Commission under President Donald Trump in an effort to block the agency's unusually early review of its local television stations. The company alleges the review is part of a retaliatory campaign that violates its free speech rights. Because broadcast licenses are what allow local stations to operate at all, the threat of losing them — the very lever Disney says is being wielded — raises the stakes of the review well beyond a routine regulatory matter. Trump has repeatedly demanded the dismissal of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over his anti-Trump stances and punchlines, and attacked the network's popular daytime program The View for its supposedly liberal bias. Brendan Carr, Trump's handpicked FCC chair, has gone along with those attacks and led the charge against ABC.

Both sides returned to court Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., as the case moved forward. U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, is overseeing the dispute — and, as Wall Street Journal media reporter Joe Flint noted in a post about the hearing, did not appear happy about it.

On X, Flint shared a telling exchange between Disney's legal team and the judge.

"We don't want to be here," Disney attorney Beth Wilkinson said.

"I don't want to be here either," AliKhan responded.

In a follow-up post, Flint summed up the arguments from each side in the early hearing.

"Hearing in a nutshell: Disney argues the administration is using the FCC and threat of losing ABC broadcast licenses to attack free speech," Flint explained. "FCC argues U.S. District Court doesn't have jurisdiction here and ABC trying to circumvent regulatory process." That jurisdictional argument is more than a procedural footnote: if the court accepted it, the case could end before Disney's free speech claims are ever weighed.

AliKhan previously denied Disney's motion to request an expedited trial, sparking concerns that she might rule favorably toward the FCC. However, a report from the Radio+Television Business Report suggested that such a move "is exactly what gives Disney/ABC attorneys the upper hand — and puts Brendan Carr on notice that the Commission should not do anything too soon."

"The FCC reacted to AliKhan's rebuff of an expedited hearing schedule by noting it was pleased the judge rejected 'Disney's meritless attempt to rush into court,'" the report detailed. "However, by midday Friday multiple legal experts in Washington had contacted RBR+TVBR to state that AliKhan's order is effectively a [temporary restraining order], and that a preliminary injunction is very much in her sights. Thus, they opine, AliKhan did not deliver 'Round 1 to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr' as former ACA Connects public relations head turned D.C. wonk Ted Hearn stated in his Policyband blog on Friday."

AliKhan has also previously ruled that the FCC cannot move ahead with its station reviews while the lawsuit is ongoing. With those reviews frozen and the legal experts cited by the report describing a preliminary injunction as "very much in her sights," the court's next rulings will indicate how much room the FCC has to act while the litigation runs its course.