Jimmy Kimmel defiantly returned to TV on Tuesday night, less than a week after his show was abruptly suspended following the Trump administration’s threats over comments he made about Charlie Kirk’s accused murderer. In his opening monologue, Kimmel tackled the Federal Communications Commission pressure on ABC head-on, saying that “a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American.”
He took aim at President Donald Trump directly, saying, “The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.” He pointed out that Trump has called for other comedians — including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers — to be fired. “I hope that if that happens, or if there’s even any hint of that happening, you will be ten times as loud as you were this week,” Kimmel said. “We have to speak out against this because he’s not stopping. And it’s not just comedy — he’s gunning for our journalists, too. He’s suing them; he’s bullying them.”
The Kimmel saga began a week ago amid a wave of right-wing pressure to get people fired over their reactions to Kirk’s death. On September 17, FCC chair and Project 2025 author Brendan Carr went on a far-right podcast and threatened that the agency would move to revoke ABC’s affiliate licenses unless the network pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air over the comedian’s September 15 remarks about Kirk’s assassination and the Trump administration’s response to it. Sinclair and Nexstar — which when combined own about 70 of ABC’s affiliate stations — said they’d stop airing the show, and within hours Disney announced it was suspending it “indefinitely.”
Here is the @JimmyKimmel clip on Charlie Kirk that provoked the ire of the Trump administration:
pic.twitter.com/b3qAW0ZDUm— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) September 18, 2025
Kimmel’s suspension was widely condemned, including by free-speech experts who said Carr’s threats echo the actions of other authoritarian takeovers across the world. “The FCC is simply saying, ‘We don’t want any criticism of MAGA. We don’t want anyone pointing out that we’re using this moment to target the political opposition, so get rid of that guy or we’ll take you off the air.’ Nobody’s pretending,” fascism scholar Jason Stanley told The Cut. He added, “This is a classic authoritarian move.”
The network’s decision led to calls for a boycott of ABC’s parent company, Disney, with Google searches for “cancel Disney+” and “cancel Hulu” spiking to all-time highs. On Monday, Disney announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return following “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.” (Coincidentally, the announcement came one day before Disney disclosed that it was hiking subscription costs on four of its streaming plans.)
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During his opening monologue on Tuesday, Kimmel came out strongly against Trump but seemed intent on showing respect to Kirk and his family. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he said, choking up. “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.” Later in the segment, he tearfully said he was moved by Erika Kirk saying at her husband’s memorial on Sunday that she forgives his alleged killer. “That is an example we should follow,” Kimmel said. “If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That’s it. A selfless act of grace — forgiveness from a grieving widow.”
Kimmel’s show did not air on Sinclair or Nexstar’s broadcast channels. Both broadcast groups seemed opposed to ABC’s decision to bring Kimmel back: Sinclair stood by its demands that he issue an apology to Kirk’s family and a personal donation to his far-right organization, Turning Point USA; Nexstar, meanwhile, said it wants to make sure “all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.” They both aired news programming instead of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which was available on channels not owned by Nexstar or Sinclair as well as Disney’s streaming programs.
For his part, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was not happy about Kimmel’s return. “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” he wrote. In his post, he baselessly claimed the comedian is “yet another arm of the DNC” and suggested he would file yet another lawsuit against ABC. “Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars,” he said, referring to the network’s defamation settlement in December. “This one sounds even more lucrative.”
In his monologue on Tuesday, Kimmel said he disagreed with ABC’s decision to pull the show off the air but understood the risks the company faced under the Trump administration. (At one point during the episode, Robert De Niro Zoomed in to play a mafioso version of Carr.) Kimmel emphasized that it’s important to continue defending the First Amendment and not cave to Trump’s attempts to muzzle anyone, whether they are comedians, the press, or regular people whose jobs could be on the line.
“This show is not important,” he said. “What’s important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
