(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Federal government forces Jimmy Kimmel off the air. RIP First Amendment. [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-09-17
Man, you gotta hand it to ABC. The speed with which it will knuckle under to President Donald Trump is really impressive.
It took only a few hours for the powers that be to indefinitely sideline award-winning late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after the Trump administration expressed displeasure with Kimmel’s recent monologue.
Let’s peep this timeline. On Wednesday afternoon, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson’s podcast, which is apparently where the government announces investigations now, and threatened ABC over remarks Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s killer. By early evening, ABC had pulled Kimmel’s show indefinitely.
Related | ABC gives Trump what he wants—and he's not going to stop
That is a fast turnaround! Of course, ABC has always been good about capitulating to Trump quickly. After he won the 2024 election, ABC executives didn’t even bother to wait until he took office before handing him $16 million in the hopes his administration would leave them alone.
Suckers. That $16 million, ostensibly paid to settle a meritless defamation lawsuit Trump filed, didn’t buy them anything. You can’t negotiate with terrorists. All ABC did was show how willing it was to accede to Trump’s demands.
Carr’s threat was not at all subtle. He told Johnson that the FCC “can do this the easy way or the hard way,” which is some really weird mobster talk to come out of the mouth of an agency chair. Then he made clear what the “easy way” was: “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
So what terrible things did Kimmel say that warranted ABC yanking his show based on a few words from Carr? You can watch Kimmel’s entire monologue and see for yourself.
The remarks that Carr was most incensed about were, to be honest, mild as fuck and do not constitute anything remotely actionable. But hey, he was talking about Charlie Kirk, and we now have an entire federal government weaponized against anyone who is not lavishly praising Kirk. What in particular had Carr so furious?
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said. He also said that MAGA was using Kirk’s death to score political points.
Here’s the thing. That is absolutely what the MAGA gang did the moment the world learned Kirk was dead. They have sought to blame the left writ large and transgender people in particular. The fact that Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, may have been motivated by a desire to stop Kirk’s hatred or because he had a trans roommate doesn’t change that.
So now you don’t just get in trouble for insufficiently praising Charlie Kirk as the 13th disciple or greatest civil rights hero in history or whatever. You also get in trouble for talking about what Trump’s supporters—including members of his administration—are doing. Got it.
One of the biggest TV station owners in the country, Nexstar Media, immediately told ABC it would pre-empt Kimmel’s show over his remarks. What prompted Nexstar to drop Kimmel so quickly?
According to Nexstar, Kimmel’s comments were “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.”
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
Censoring Kimmel, per Nexstar, is actually cool and great, because it will “let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue."
Sure, maybe it’s that, but perhaps it is that Nexstar just inked a $6.2 billion deal with rival broadcast station owner Tegna, and that deal needs approval from the Trump administration.
Kimmel now joins Stephen Colbert, whose show was canceled by CBS in what was clearly a quid pro quo for the administration to approve the merger between Paramount and Skydance. Carr happily took credit for that, and clearly felt—correctly—that FCC threats get results.
Plus, Carr was just delivering on what Trump demanded back in July on Truth Social after CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s show in what was clearly a quid pro quo for the administration to approve the merger between Paramount and Skydance.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next,” he posted on social media. “Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
Chat, is it good when networks fire their award-winning late-night hosts to curry favor with the regime? Is it good that we are all going to have to pretend Fox News host Greg Gutfield is funny?
Here’s the thing. Every deal with this administration is a bad bargain. By giving in so swiftly on Trump’s sham defamation lawsuit last year, ABC let the administration know just how weak-willed it is, vulnerable to the slightest pressure.
Trump will just keep coming after any media company that ever speaks ill of him or his fellow travelers, and no amount of money is going to fix that. Unless ABC wants to turn into Fox or Newsmax, this is their future.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/17/2344089/-Federal-government-forces-Jimmy-Kimmel-off-the-air-RIP-First-Amendment?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
