The Regime Media Mourn the Suspension of Regime Comic Jimmy Kimmel

Jorge Bonilla
September 18th, 2025 2:10 AM

Text to Speech

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Disney/ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely in response to backlash subsequent to his statements regarding the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, wherein he misrepresented the shooter’s motive and falsely said the shooter was MAGA. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Acela Media appear more upset about the loss of Kimmel’s show than they are about Kirk’s assassination.

The story broke during the 6PM hour, and the spin started immediately. Watch Brian Stelter come on and try to gaslight the public into believing that what Kimmel said was “serious commentary”:

BRIAN STELTER: But let's back up and look at what Kimmel actually said on the program that has caused controversy. This is from Monday night in his Monday evening monologue, Kimmel suggested that the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk might have been a pro-trump Republican. He said, quote, "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." He said in between the finger pointing, there was grieving. Kimmel was 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 in his monologue Monday night. Here's where it became interesting earlier today. The FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, went on a far right webcast and condemned Kimmel and urged ABC to suspend him. He also talked about possible regulatory punishments of Disney because there are lots of different stations that have licenses with the FCC. Within the past hour. We've heard from a big owner of stations that have affiliations with ABC. A company called Nexstar saying that they were going to suspend Kimmel's show on their stations. So, in other words, about two dozen stations were refusing to air Kimmel's show tonight as a result of this controversy. And then following word that some of those stations were basically revolting against Kimmel, Disney, the parent company of ABC, decided to yank the show entirely. So that's all we know at the moment. We know Kimmel will not be on the air tonight or for the foreseeable future, because the network says the show has been yanked off the air indefinitely.

JAKE TAPPER: Brian, just to take one issue- your interpretation of what Kimmel said, I think is the one that Brendan Carr had and the one that the individuals at Nexstar have, but what he said specifically was, quote, "the Maga Gang is 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." That can be read in several ways. That could be heard in several ways. It could also be interpreted. It could also be argued, he's saying that what the Maga Gang is doing is just trying to make sure that they don't have any ownership of it, not necessarily that that this killer, this horrible person, was part of them. I mean, I just-

STELTER: I think you're making a very important point. You're making a very important point. And let's take a little bit step further. This was all on Monday night. Nobody seemed to notice this yesterday, Jake. This all erupted in the past few hours when the Trump-aligned FCC chairman decided to point at it. Now I've heard from him in the past few minutes. Brendan Carr thanking Nexstar for doing the right thing by yanking the show. He has not yet commented on ABC, yanking the show altogether across the entire country. But let's remember that when Stephen Colbert's show was canceled over the summer, what did president trump say? He said, "next up will be an even less talented Jimmy Kimmel." It is clear that pro-Trump allies have been trying to target ABC over Kimmel for several weeks now, and tonight they've prevailed. 

TAPPER: Yeah, Brian Stelter. Thanks so much for that breaking news.

Sure, Kimmel was "expressing what we've heard some other liberals say in recent days." But that's precisely the problem, no? Kimmel joining those other liberals in suggesting, without evidence that the shooter was some MAGA diehard, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary- including the evidence contained in the probable cause affidavit released on Monday before Kimmel came on the air. 

Over at MSNBC, legal contributor and former Mueller attack dog Andrew Weissman bemoaned Kimmel's suspension and likened it to McCarthyism:

ANDREW WEISSMANN: So I'm going to tell you a very quick story when I had lunch with my parents and I asked them about the McCarthy era- the Joseph McCarthy era, and I said, "compare that, living through that and living through Trump 1.0." And they said that- that 1.0 was better because at least then there were people speaking up and you didn't feel alone, and that there was a real sense of the First Amendment and you weren't terrified. And it wasn't this idea of silencing. And that is the thing that we talked about on this show and we've talked about before, is that that- that slipping into the use of fear and the levers of power to recapitulate a really hideous point in our history in the 1950s with the Red Scare and what was done to people in Hollywood, in academia, in government. And that is the concern, is that you're going to see that kind of silence that is being used through government power.

ARI MELBER: Yeah. And as you remind everyone, that was a dark period where they did get away with a lot. Some of it was- was found to be unlawful and unconstitutional over time. And eventually there- there was progress. But after a lot of lives and careers were ruined. And again, as you, as you mentioned, focused on entertainment and culture in addition to dissidents and civil rights organizers because it reached people. So this is quite a signal- quite a big development here. 

Chris Hayes weighed in as well, with an equal measure of histrionics: 

CHRIS HAYES: And this is just the latest chapter in Donald Trump's ongoing campaign to crack down on free speech, dominate the media, and essentially render the First Amendment meaningless. An extreme campaign that has been on overdrive the past week. I mean, just yesterday you had the deputy attorney general of these United States, the number two in the Department of Justice and the former criminal lawyer for the president suggesting using criminal anti-racketeering laws, the kind of things used for mobsters, RICO statutes to go after and prosecute protesters who heckled Donald Trump at a restaurant, who yelled at him. We're also getting new reports. Today, The White House plans to target a variety of left leaning groups and nonprofits in the coming weeks, all part of a larger and more dangerous effort underway. And it follows a playbook we have seen successfully run in recent years by authoritarian strongmen in places like Hungary and Turkey and Russia, because in those places they did just not- they didn't just criminalize speech they didn't like, though some of them did some of that. Crucially, they made it virtually impossible to see and hear examples of that speech by taking de facto control of the media landscape.

Back to CNN, where they put Jeffrey Toobin and his visible hands on for a defense of Kimmel:

JEFFREY TOOBIN: This is- I mean, of all things to be offended by, you know, the- I heard a lot more offensive things said in the aftermath of this terrible, awful event than that. And it just shows they are looking for reasons to get Jimmy Kimmel and they they manufactured one out of something that is, you know, hardly a dramatic departure from what lots of people are saying.

The "many people are saying" defense of defamatory speech is something else. Stay loose, Toobin! 

Anderson Cooper focused most of his show on the Kimmel suspension, as if it were a national security event. Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) weighed in on both the Kimmel suspension and on President Trump designating Antifa as a Major Terrorist Organization:

DAN GOLDMAN: Well, I hope he can first define what Antifa is, because there is no Antifa organization. So maybe that's good for social media. But it really has- is nonexistent. But the point is that he's using the Charlie Kirk murder as a pretext to go after people that he disagrees with. He, on the very night of Kirk's murder, you will remember, accused the left of committing the murder when the murder had not even been caught or identified. This is all a pretext and it is a shame. I think, as Rahm said, that Charlie Kirk actually stood for free speech. And instead, they're using his memory to attack free speech.

The smugness is vintage Goldman, who seems angrier at the Trump administration's designation of Antifa as a terror organization than at a political assassination on American soil. 

If there is a consistent theme to coverage of l'affaire Kimmel as sampled above, it is to mourn it as this broad, McCarthyite assault on the First Amendment. The reality is that the show was ripe for cancellation, as was Colbert's before him due to it losing money, and the despicable remarks subsequent to the Kirk assassination provided Disney with a dignified offramp.

 

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