By a more than two-to-one margin, Americans are more likely to approve (58%) than disapprove (25%) of ABC and its parent company Disney's decision to end the recent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and allow him to return to television. according to a new Yahoo/YouGov poll.
Earlier this month ABC announced that he was pulling Kimmel's late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!taken off air “indefinitely” after Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, criticized Kimmel's comments about the motives of the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Carr also suggested that the FCC could decide to revoke the ABC affiliates' licenses as a means of enforcement Disney punish Kimmel. “We can do this the simple way or the complex way,” Carr said.
President Trump moved on offering that the “networks” and “late night shows” that “only give me bad publicity” “maybe” should “have their licenses taken away.”
The Trump administration's threats to take regulatory action have sparked widespread criticism from free speech advocates, culminating in Celebrity-led boycott of Disney programs and products. ABC announced Kimmel's return less than a week later.
A new Yahoo/YouGov poll of 1,676 American adults was conducted just after Kimmel returns September 23. It found that while Americans were split on whether they approved (38%) or disapproved (40%) of Kimmel's initial remarks, they largely disapproved of the way ABC/Disney — and, to an even greater extent, the Trump administration — responded to them.
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Only 31% of Americans approve of ABC/Disney's decision to remove Kimmel altogether; a majority (54%) say they disapprove.
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Just 22% of Americans approve of the federal government “threatening regulatory action against media companies for comments like Kimmel's,” as Carr did earlier this month. More than six in 10 (61%) disapprove of the idea.
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And even fewer Americans (16%) approve of the president “taking regulatory action against media companies because they criticize him,” as Trump suggested. More than two-thirds (67%) disapprove of the decision.
When you dig deeper into the data, a clear partisan pattern emerges. Consider Kimmel's initial suspension: Far more Democrats disapprove (90%) than Republicans approve (62%), while a majority of independents are more likely to disapprove (57%) than approve (24%). Likewise, the share of Democrats (92%) and even independents (63%) who approve of ABC/Disney's decision to bring Kimmel back far exceeds the share of Republicans who disapprove of the decision (53%).
In other words, the backlash to Kimmel's comments on the right is not strong enough to outweigh the backlash to his suspension from the left and center.
When asked which party poses the “greatest threat to free speech,” more Americans say Republicans (40%) than Democrats (28%). (Another 22% say the parties are “about the same.”) Among independents, the gap between Republicans (44%) and Democrats (18%) is even wider.
More Americans view Kimmel positively than unfavorably
After CBS announced in July that it was canceling its long-running late-night program with host Stephen Colbert, Yahoo and YouGov asked: a series of similar questions about politics, speech and television.
But while Colbert's cancellation was not popular—33% approved; 40% disapprove—reaction to the recent Kimmel controversy was much more lopsided in his favor.
Overall, more Americans have a positive view of Kimmel (46%) than an unfavorable view (39%). (Trump's current rating is 43% favorable, 54% unfavorable.) As expected, Kimmel's numbers are overwhelmingly positive among those who say he is their favorite late-night host (92% favorable, 6% unfavorable). But he also has a positive image among those who name other late-night hosts as their favorites (56% positive, 31% negative).
In fact, Americans who say they don't watch late-night television are the only group that gives Kimmel a net negative rating (19% positive, 58% negative). They also lean or identify as Republicans rather than Democrats, by a margin of 58% to 19%.
When Americans were asked to pick up to three favorite late-night talk show hosts in July, Colbert (25%) tied for first place with Jimmy Fallon (25%) and Kimmel trailed with 22%. But Kimmel (22%) is now narrowly ahead of Colbert (21%) and Fallon (20%).
Why the shift? Significantly more Democrats now name Kimmel one of their three favorite late-night hosts: 44% today versus 35% in July. At the same time, Colbert and Fallon lost some ground among Democrats. And while fewer Republicans still choose Kimmel as their favorite (7% compared to 13%), that's not enough to offset his gains on the other side of the party.
Kimmel is widely considered a liberal (57%) rather than a moderate (14%) or conservative (4%). But more Americans (40%) say he is “about right” in his approach to politics than say he is “too political” (35%). More Americans also continue to support (45%) rather than oppose (33%) “late-night talk show hosts who engage in politics by speaking out on political issues.”
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The Yahoo poll was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,676 American adults surveyed online from September 25 to 29, 2025. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, education, turnout in the 2024 and presidential elections, party affiliation, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets are from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted by the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democrats, 32% Republicans). Respondents were selected from YouGov volunteers to represent all American adults. The error is approximately 3%.
