In a stunning and disturbing development on Wednesday evening, Disney and ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel’s popular late-night talk show was being pulled off the air because of something Kimmel said on his show about the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The news came after station owner Nexstar Media Group said it would pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live” from its ABC affiliate stations because of Kimmel’s comments. Nexstar, which owns about 200 TV stations, has ABC affiliates in 32 markets across the U.S. Shortly after, ABC announced it would pull the show “indefinitely.”
So what did Kimmel say, exactly?
During his monologue on Monday’s program, Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Kimmel then showed a clip of President Donald Trump being asked by reporters how he was holding up after Kirk’s death, and Trump saying, “I think very good” before quickly pivoting to the new construction going on at the White House.
The point of Kimmel’s comment didn’t seem to be that he was blaming the MAGA community for Kirk’s shooting, but that the MAGA community was blaming the left and trying to score political points from it.
Regardless of the intent, to have a show taken off the air for such a remark seems like a blatant disregard for freedom of speech.
Still, Nexstar seized on Kimmel’s remarks as an opportunity to force Kimmel’s show off the air.
In a statement, it said, “Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
Andrew Alford, the president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said in the statement, “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located. Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”
On Wednesday, well before the official announcement that Kimmel’s show was being yanked for the time being, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr threatened to take action against Disney, ABC and Kimmel.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by right-wing political commentator Benny Johnson, Carr said, “In some quarters, there's a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people about the nature … of one of the most significant newsworthy public interest acts that we've seen in a long time in what appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or a Republican-motivated person.”
Carr continued, “And I've been very clear from the moment that I have become chairman of the FCC, I want to reinvigorate the public interest. And what people don't understand is that the broadcasters, and you've gotten this right, are entirely different than people that use other forms of communication. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
It’s hard not to draw a line from Carr’s comments to Kimmel’s cancellation.
CNN media reporter Brian Stelter said he asked Carr if he had any new comments now that ABC pulled Kimmel’s show, and that Carr sent him back a GIF from the TV show, “The Office,” with characters played by Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson lifting their arms in celebration. (Here’s Stelter’s tweet, including the GIF.)
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.”
Trump then challenged NBC to get rid of late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the FCC, put out a statement criticizing the administration, saying, “An inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control. This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression, not because it glorifies violence or breaks the law, but because it challenges those in power or reflects views they oppose.”
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes tweeted, “This is the most straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I've ever seen in my life and it's not even close.”
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted, “Buying and controlling media platforms. Firing commentators. Canceling shows. These aren’t coincidences. It’s coordinated. And it’s dangerous.The @GOP does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time.”
The Kimmel news comes during a week when free speech has become a major topic in the U.S. Earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi had to walk back her remarks after she said, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Following heavy criticism from all sides of the political spectrum that her comments were in opposition to the First Amendment, Bondi said, “Freedom of speech is sacred in our country, and we will never impede upon that right. My intention was to speak about threats of violence that individuals incite against others.”
And while Kimmel is not being held legally responsible for what he said, he certainly is being punished — in this case, to borrow a word that many (especially on the right) like to use, “canceled” — for comments on a TV show.
How rare is it for affiliates to pull a program over politics?
The Los Angeles Times’ Stephen Battaglio wrote, “It’s extremely rare for networks to drop a show in response to political pressure. Bill Maher’s ‘Politically Incorrect’ was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were ‘not cowardly.’ In 1970, CBS blacked out the image of activist Abbie Hoffman when he appeared on ‘The Merv Griffin Show’ wearing a shirt made out of an American flag.”
The news also comes at a precarious time for late-night talk shows. CBS announced earlier this summer that Stephen Colbert’s late-night show would be canceled next May. CBS claims it was a financial decision, but many wondered if Colbert’s consistent criticism of Trump, as well as his criticism of Paramount (CBS’s owners) settling a lawsuit with Trump, played a role in CBS’s decision.
But there also could be more at play here.
The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr and Scott Nover pointed out, “The FCC is set to review Nexstar’s proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of another local television behemoth, Tegna. That deal, which is expected to close by the second half of 2026, would also require the FCC to relax the national ownership cap that limits how many stations one company can own in the United States. Carr has suggested in the past that he is willing to raise or eliminate the long-standing cap.”
Pushing Kimmel’s show off the air by Nexstar might help Carr look even more favorably on Nexstar’s deal, which is another troubling piece in this story.
Rolling Stone’s Charisma Madarang, Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez wrote, “The decisions by Nexstar and ABC to silence Kimmel, over relatively innocuous comments, is the latest sign of how terrified major corporations and media companies have grown of the second Trump administration. The president and his lieutenants have made clear that they’re willing to leverage the full weight of the federal government against networks and their parent companies, especially if TV personalities or comedians on the network say things that annoy Trump.”
They added, “In the hours leading up to the decision to pull Kimmel, two sources familiar with the matter say, senior executives at ABC, its owner Disney, and affiliates convened emergency meetings to figure out how to minimize the damage. Multiple execs felt that Kimmel had not actually said anything over the line, the two sources say, but the threat of Trump administration retaliation loomed.”
Barr and Nover wrote in their Post story, “The decision by ABC is likely to be seen as a concession to the network’s critics. In December, the company agreed to put $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit. After the announcement that Colbert’s show would be canceled, Trump speculated on his Truth Social platform that Kimmel was ‘NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes.’”
Kimmel has been a constant critic of Trump, who even once wrote a Truth Social post slamming Kimmel while Kimmel was hosting the 2024 Academy Awards. Kimmel read Trump’s post live on the air, to the delight of those in the audience.
There have been reports that ABC is not canceling Kimmel’s show permanently. But it would seem as if the only way Kimmel returns is if he offers an apology, and, honestly, it would be surprising if Kimmel apologized.
Note that his contract is up at the end of the 2025-26 season, and he had previously hinted that this might be his last contract anyway. One could easily see him walking away, even though he reportedly is paid about $16 million a year to host “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
