Jimmy Kimmel’s Fellow Late-Night Hosts Have His Back

Thursday was the first night back for the late-night shows since Jimmy Kimmel was yanked off the air after a conservative backlash to a joke he made about Charlie Kirk’s killer. Kimmel’s removal came after the FCC threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license, which, paired with a judge ordering for the deportation of activist Mahmoud Khalil on Thursday, marks a frightening escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on free speech.

Kimmel’s colleagues, however, do not seem too rattled — even though the president wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!” Jimmy, Seth, and the other total losers rallied around Kimmel, advocating for free speech and nodding to their personal relationships with him. They also jokingly cozied up to President Donald Trump, who wants all of them gone. Here’s how they riffed on the Kimmel news on-air.

Jon Stewart made a special appearance.

Jon Stewart usually hosts The Daily Show only on Mondays but made a special exception last night. Using his backdrop to turn the set into the kind of gaudy, golden room that Trump loves, Stewart welcomed viewers to “another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show.” For the next 20 minutes, Stewart chided his audience for laughing at Trump and feigned deference to “our great father.”

After a bunch of jokes about Trump’s U.K. trip and the right’s hypocrisy toward free speech, Stewart addressed the Kimmel situation more bluntly. “Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smoke screen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance,” Stewart said. “Some people would say that. Not me though, I think it’s great.”

Stephen Colbert attacked from all angles.

Colbert, who is in his final season of The Late Show after it was canceled by CBS in a “purely financial decision,” opened his monologue by saying, “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.” The host went on to call Kimmel’s removal “blatant censorship.”

“With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” Colbert said. “If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naïve. And clearly they’ve never read the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Kimmel.”

After his monologue, Colbert  voiced Lumière in a “Be Our Guest” spoof called “Shut Your Trap.” He brought back his blowhard conservative alter ego from The Colbert Report, reviving his segment “The Word” (the word was “Shhhhhh!”). Then, he continued to talk about the situation with his guests, New Yorker editor David Remnick and CNN anchor Jake Tapper. Remnick compared FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threat against ABC to “something out of Goodfellas,” while Tapper called it “a direct violation of the First Amendment, because it is the government telling companies what to do.”

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Jimmy Fallon played with letters.

“Well, guys, the big story is that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC, after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking, ‘WTF,’” Fallon said jokingly at the beginning of his monologue. Brilliant, as per usual. Fallon then told his audience, “I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel and he’s a decent, funny, and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.” That’s nice. He then joked about Trump’s time in the U.K., with any inflammatory punch lines dubbed over with stilted compliments to the president, before moving on to some jokes about Melania’s hat.

Seth Meyers also pretended to remind us of his love for Trump.

An outspoken Trump critic, Meyers opened his show by saying that he has “always admired and respected Trump.” “If you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI,” he told the crowd before launching into coverage of Trump’s attack on free speech. “It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show every night,” Meyers said at the end of the segment. “I wake up every day, and I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech. We’re going to keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it with enthusiasm and integrity.” He was then interrupted by a well-timed fart noise.

Greg Gutfeld added his two cents.

Over on Fox News’s late-night show, the vibe was very different. After playing a clip of journalist Brian Stelter saying that Kimmel’s suspension has a chilling effect across media, Greg Gutfeld said, “Chilling effect. Dude, the only thing chilling is the ten-gallon jug of ranch dressing you use to make Popsicles in your fridge.” A joke so bad and confusing that it verges on surreal. Gutfeld then suggested that Kimmel could still tell jokes, but he’d just need to find a new place to do it. “I hear Gaza is nice this time of year,” he said. In order to refrain from hypocrisy, I guess I support Gutfeld’s right to make unfunny jokes. I also support my own right to say that he’s a soulless hack. God bless America!