CNN’s The Lead happened to be on-air as word came that ABC had suspended liberal late-night host Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely following conspiratorial and vile remarks Monday mocking President Trump and conservatives for mourning last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk. Before CNN went nearly wall-to-wall with coverage as though there had been a mass shooting, host Jake Tapper and chief media analyst Brian Stelter leapt to his defense.
Stelter went first and noted it was these comments that landed him hot water:
Having set the table, he began to spin by insisting Kimmel was merely “expressing what we’ve heard some other liberals say in recent days that the motives are unclear and that maybe the suspect in this case was a Republican or was some sort of far-right fringe figure.”
“Of course, there has been a lot of discussion about that in recent days. There’s a lot of evidence pointing in other directions about the suspect, but Kimmel was on the air talking about this, making a very serious commentary amid his jokes,” Stelter added.
Stelter floated what’s become a dominant narrative that a conspiracy was afoot as FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told “a far-right webcast” (Benny Johnson) hours ago that “Disney needs to see some changes here” and “[w]e can do this the easy way or the hard way” with “companies...find[ing] ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
After Stelter pointed out local TV conglomerate Nexstar had stepped up and said their ABC affiliates (which there are over 30) wouldn’t air Kimmel, Tapper insisted Kimmel’s comments “can be read in several ways.”
Stelter huffed this came on the heels of CBS saying in July it’d cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert come May 2026 and concluded “[i]t is clear that pro-Trump allies have been trying to target ABC over Kimmel for several weeks now, and tonight they’ve prevailed.”
Tapper then brought in his political panel. Thankfully, moderate Republican and legal guest Joseph Moreno burst Tapper’s bubble about the divisive state of late-night comedy:
Tapper became incensed Moreno invoked Kimmel’s distasteful declaration Trump was mourning Kirk like a four-year-old grieves for a goldfish. The thin-skinned CNN host insisted Kimmel did not do anything of the sort:
Moments later, Tapper furthered seethed this was “actually cancel culture” and found common cause with progressive strategist Chuck Rocha’s apocalyptic talk:
After playing only the “MAGA gang” soundbite, Tapper took a pot shot at Fox News: “Now, the way that Fox covered what he just said, there was, Kimmel suggests Kirk assassin was one of the MAGA gang despite reports of leftist leanings. I don’t know that I think that that is an accurate description, but they have the First Amendment to write what they want to write.”
Moreno received another chance to deliver a reality check, arguing “I don’t think ABC is canceling him because they’re afraid of the FCC. I think they’re afraid that they’re going to lose whatever audience he has left, because that’s such an offensive thing.”
He continued by citing a great thing called the marketplace and noted Kimmel has the freedom to go somewhere else:
[T]here’s so much media alternatives at this point. So I think the FCC’s — the range of authority they have is less and less because there are so many other outlets to — to reach out to. So if Kimmel wants to reappear somewhere else, he will. I think the point is, though, that again, when you alienate a part of the population who at some point just stops watching, then you have no incentive to keep whatever left of that audience as there is. And then, you know, it just kind of goes down the drain.
Of course, this didn’t sit well with Tapper. As he’s prone to do when liberals state something controversial or incendiary, Tapper engages in grade-school whataboutism by invoking President Trump’s conduct (click “expand”):
TAPPER: Let me ask you a question. Do you think that we are holding late-night comedians to a standard for speech and decency, that we do not hold our elected leaders, including the President of the United States, to.
MORENO: I guess, who’s we? I mean, you’re talking about audience watchers or American citizens?
TAPPER: The American — the American people, the — the government of the of the United States, as of now. Are we demanding that our late night comedians behave in a more upright and more conciliatory, insensitive way than we demand that our President act?
MORENO: Well, I think it’s not so much demanding. It’s — if you don’t like what Kimmel saying, you turn it off. If you don’t like what Trump is doing, you don’t vote for him. So I think that’s the power you have. And so I don’t know that there’s any kind of.
TAPPER: But we’re not turning off Jimmy Kimmel. There’s being pressure applied to have him canceled.
MORENO: That’s ABC’s choice though. They don’t have to cancel him.
ROCHA: But they feel the heat. That’s why they do it. Everybody who gets in the line of fire of this administration feels the heat. And they’re like, whoa, whoa whoa whoa. We don’t want any heat here. This is the big boys. And they all back down.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 17, click here.
