On Wednesday, bowing to pressure from the Trump administration, ABC pulled the plug on the late-night series “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off air. The show, which ran for over two decades, has been shelved indefinitely. monologue we are talking about the murder of a conservative activist Charlie Kirk– one in which Kimmel did not humiliate Kirk and, moreover, did not comment on him at all. Instead, he directed his scorn at those who wanted to take advantage of the activist's death: members MAGA gang,” who he said were “desperately trying to characterize this guy who killed Charlie Kirk as someone other than one of them, and doing everything they could to score political points on it.” It was unclear whether Kimmel intended this. Tyler RobinsonKirk's alleged killer was “one of them,” but his ideological opponents seized on the ambiguous formulation. Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called Kimmel's comments “truly disgusting” and threatened retaliation through his agency. “We can do this the simple way or the complex way,” Carr said on a right-wing podcast. “These companies can find ways to change behavior and, frankly, take action against Kimmel, or the FCC has more work to do.”
The story behind Kimmel's ouster is complicated. Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, which owns ABC, and Dana Walden, the studio's television chief, decided to pull the show after two major local radio groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, refused to carry it. (Sinclair, a conservative conglomerate, went so far as to demand that the host apologize to Kirk's family and make a donation to his organization. US turning point.) Kimmel was reportedly willing to speak on the matter on air; Instead, Disney executives pulled the plug on the show. Donald Trumpwho called for ABC to drop Kimmel back in 2018, inaccurately shouted on Truth Social that he was “CANCELED” and suggested that Kimmel's fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers should also be fired. An emboldened Carr has indicated that he will next focus his attention on the ABC daytime talk show The View (another thorn in Trump's side).
The monologue that brought Kimmel to an involuntary pause was not unusual for the show. In fact, it was a neat embodiment of his comedic persona: a regular guy whose political impulses are rooted in common sense. After condemning the behavior “MAGA ” He mocked Trump's response to a reporter's question about Kirk, who had to immediately change the subject of renovating the White House ballroom. (“He's in the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel joked. He added, more seriously: “This is not the way a grown man mourns the murder of someone he called a friend. This is the way a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”) populist decency for which he has become known: “Instead of angry “Finger pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is terrible and heinous to shoot another person? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and all the children, parents and innocent people who are victims of senseless gun violence.”
