Thursday morning on WMAL’s “O’Connor and Company,” MRC NewsBusters took center stage in a lively chat about Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension from ABC. The conversation, featuring MRC President David Bozell, kicked off with a quip about two of the more grueling jobs at MRC, handled by Alex Christy, who covers the late-night “comedy” shows, and Nick Fondacaro, who monitors the cackling crew at The View.
Co-host Bethany Mandel joked, “Does this come with hazard pay?” Bozell chuckled, “They watch it, so we don’t have to. You have to be a different kind of crazy to do this sort of thing. But I love them and they’re great.”
The focus was on Kimmel’s suspension after his Monday monologue, where he snidely remarked, “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.”
MRC’s Alex Christy posted the clip on X, amassing 15.2 million views and a sharp rebuke from Elon Musk: “Jimmy Kimmel is disgusting.” That was the final straw of thousands of straws, when ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its lineup late Wednesday, replacing it for the time being with the much more entertaining Celebrity Family Feud, with future programming TBD, after pushback from affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair.
Jimmy Kimmel claims "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" and "This is not how an adult… pic.twitter.com/KMhnskaYWD
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) September 16, 2025
Host Larry O’Connor lauded MRC: “I think it’s fair to say that Media Research Center can sit up straight today and recognize the good work that your team does there in pulling clips.”
He then asked Bozell if the suspension was about political speech or something deeper, “and what do we know about the FCC’s involvement, if any involvement?” He noted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr “didn’t threaten anything,” speculating affiliates consulted Carr for options like pulling Kimmel’s show.
Bozell highlighted the public’s frustration: “Grassroots Americans had had enough. They were willing to cut the cord. Sinclair and Nexstar are trying to preserve the cord, as it were. That’s their business model, cable. Kimmel was in the cord, and his comment about MAGA protecting the killer was beyond the pale.”
MRC’s research has long exposed Kimmel’s sway. A 2024 study by Alex Christy crowned him the most mean-spirited late-night host of them all, with 92% of his jokes targeting conservatives. Another MRC study found 99% of late-night guests were liberal in the first half of 2025.
O’Connor set up the broader issue: “MRC has been tracking the influence and importance of these late-night shows and how political and news-oriented they have become. It is disingenuous at best to say that this is just a comedian telling jokes, isn’t it?”
Bozell agreed, “Absolutely, it’s disingenuous at best. Every time anyone gets on television, they have the opportunity to go viral. And so their ratings may not be what they once were, but they can go viral at any moment and be watched by millions.” He cited a YouGov poll post-Kirk’s assassination, where most Americans initially believed the killer was MAGA, possibly fueled by Kimmel’s claim.
O’Connor closed, saying, “David Bozell, thanks for jumping in on this story, a big media story, and once again, the Media Research Center has their fingerprints on the research and exposing exactly what’s going on here, and always effective.” Hear the full interview below.
David Bozell is the president of the Media Research Center and ForAmerica, a grassroots organization that mobilizes conservatives to advance policies prioritizing American sovereignty and values.
Larry O'Connor is the host of "O'Connor and Company," airing weekday mornings from 5:00 to 9:00 AM on News Talk WMAL in Washington, D.C. He also hosts the daily "LARRY" podcast for Townhall Media. A seasoned media figure, O'Connor appears regularly on Fox News and Newsmax.
Bethany Mandel is the author of Stolen Youth: How Radicals are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation, a writer for the New York post and Washington Examiner, and a frequent fill-in co-host for WMAL's O'Connor and Company.
