“This show is not important,” Jimmy Kimmel said, opening “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday night. “What is important is we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
Since 2003, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has blended comedy, pop culture and current events. On Sept. 18, ABC suspended the show indefinitely after Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
The remarks in question referred to Tyler Robinson, the shooter who killed Kirk, and his political beliefs.
“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 said.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said to political commentator Benny Johnson that the FCC had “remedies” it could look at in response to Kimmel’s comment.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “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.”
President Donald Trump has been vocal about how he is portrayed by the press.
“They gave me only bad publicity, press,” Trump said. “I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”
Trump praised ABC’s decision to pull Kimmel’s show from the network on Truth Social and called for other networks to pull their late-night shows as well.
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump said on the platform. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”
Kimmel was not the first late-night host in trouble, and as Trump calls for the removal of other late-night hosts such as Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, he might not be the last.
CBS announced it is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May. The network said it canceled the show due to budget cuts; however, the timing came just after Colbert critiqued the settlement between Trump and Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS.
Fallon gave words of support to Kimmel on the Sept. 18 episode of the “Tonight Show,” and refused to bow to the pressures of censorship.
“A lot of people are worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say, or that we’ll be censored, but I’m going to cover the president’s trip to the U.K. just like I normally would,” Fallon said.
Over 400 celebrities signed an open letter condemning Kimmel’s suspension. The letter was released by the American Civil Liberties on Monday and included signatures from the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks.
Although ABC put Kimmel back on the air, two ABC affiliates, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, are not airing the program.
Despite the serious nature of Kimmel’s suspension, the host did not miss a beat and was back to making jokes.
“You almost have to feel sorry for him,” Kimmel said. “He tried, did his best to cancel me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this.”
