On Wednesday, ABC announced it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! “indefinitely” after prominent conservatives — including the Federal Communications Commission chair — criticized Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson.
During Monday night’s monologue Kimmel said, “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.” He added, “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving,” before playing a clip of Trump being asked by reporters how he was feeling about Kirk’s death. “Very good,” Trump responded in the footage, immediately pivoting the conversation to how construction of the new White House ballroom was going.
Pretty mild, considering what could be said about this situation, but the backlash was swift and considerable, with conservatives accusing Kimmel of inaccurately calling the suspect in Kirk’s murder a Trump supporter. Right-wing media figure Benny Johnson led the charge on Wednesday on X, accusing Kimmel of “effectively blaming Charlie Kirk for his own assassination” and saying he’d reached out to the FCC. Then FCC chair Brendan Carr went on Johnson’s podcast, where he called Kimmel’s comments “truly sick” and claimed the agency had a “strong case” for revoking ABC’s broadcast licenses. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said.
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It turned out to be easy. Hours later, ABC pulled Kimmel’s show and replaced the time slot with Celebrity Family Feud, per Variety. The decision was so abrupt that, according to CNN, some guests set to appear on the show on Wednesday were already on their way when news broke. Trump celebrated the decision in a Truth Social post mocking Kimmel. “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he wrote.
Trump did not mention Kirk in his post but did cheer on the news as another win in his crusade against late-night hosts who’ve criticized him. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” he wrote. “Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”
