Jimmy Kimmel is back, and in his first public words since ABC banned him, he ardently defended freedom of expression, growing emotional during the monologue of opening his night show.
Episode on Tuesday of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” He marked the host's return since ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co., announced last week that he was suspending his program indefinitely. The decision occurred after Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of ABC Affiliates, said they would not transmit the series of conversations due to the comments that Kimmel made about the suspect in death shot by conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Even after Disney reversed the suspension, both companies said they would continue to maintain “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” out of the air.
Kimmel was received by the audience of the study with a long ovation and songs of “Jimmy”. He broke a joke to open: “Who had 48 hours more strange, me or the Tylenol CEO?”
The host said it was moved by the support he had received from friends and fans, but especially those who generally disagree with him. He quoted comments from Ted Cruz and mentioned the support he received from Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.
“You can't allow our government to control what we do and not say on television, and we have to face it,” he said. “I've been listening to a lot about what I need to say and do tonight, and the truth is that I don't think what I have to say makes a big difference. If you liked it, you like it; if you don't, I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind.”
However, the most important thing for him was to give that “it was never my intention to make the light of a young man,” Kimmel said through tears, referring to Kirk.
“I understand that for some who felt bad exhausted or unclear or perhaps both, and for those who think I signed up for a finger, I understand why you are upset,” Kimmel said about his comments about Kirk's alleged murderer. “If the situation was invested, there is a good possibility that I would have felt in the same way. I have many friends and family on the other side with whom I love and remain close, although we do not agree on politics.
Kimmel also said that his ability to speak freely is “something that is ashamed to say that I said until they put my friend Stephen [Colbert] Out of the air and tried to force affiliates who direct our program in the cities where you live to take out my air program. ”
“That is not legal,” he continued. “That is not American. That is not American.”
The host said he knew that many people wondered if there was any condition for his return, and said there was one: that he read a Disney statement. He proceeded to read instructions on how to reactivate Disney+ and Hulu accounts, referring to the many people who canceled their subscriptions in protest of ABC's move last week.
He thanked Disney for welcoming him to the air and said he believes that the company is at risk “unfortunately and unfairly.” “The president of the United States made it very clear that he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here for our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans to lose their livelihoods because they cannot take a joke.”
Kimmel also noted that Trump has said that he hopes that Jimmy Fallon and the respective NBC series of Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are the following in the cutting block, and said he hopes that those who supported him are “10 times more noisy than you this week” if those shows are attacked.
Kimmel did not explicitly apologize for his comments, what Sinclair said it was a condition that he should meet before he issued the program again.
The host also said that “he felt sorry” by President Trump, since “he did everything possible to cancel it.” “Instead, he forced millions of people to see the program,” he continued. “I could have to launch Epstein archives to distract us from this.”
After the monologue, Kimmel said the program communicated with the president of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, who, according to him, had agreed to join the program, cutting a video with Robert De Niro, who seemed to channel his character of “Goodfellas”. Last week, Carr said in a podcast: “We can do it in the easy way or in the difficult way,” urging ABC to act on Kimmel's comments about Kirk and his murderer shortly before Disney did it.
“You don't need to know my name, and I am the new president of the FCC,” Niro told a bewildered Kimmel. The host had apparently listened to De Niro threatening “the view” of the host Whoopi Goldberg, but insisted that he was simply teaching a lesson on the consequences. “
“It seems that the FCC is using mafia tactics to suppress freedom of expression,” Kimmel said, to which De Niro responded with “What did you just tell me?”
“Is that freedom of expression no longer free,” he continued. “We are charging for the word now.”
He clarified that the price depends on what you are trying to say: if you are looking to say “something good about the beautiful and yellow hair of the president, how can make his makeup better than any broad, that is free.” But if you want to make a joke on how the president is “so fat that he needs two seats in the Jet Epstein”, that will direct “a couple of fingers, maybe a tooth.”
After the segment, Kimmel proceeded with business as usual, making jokes about Trump's beaches at the United Nations on Tuesday and his comments on how to take Tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of autism in children, of which there is minimal evidence.
Kimmel did not comment on his suspension until Tuesday's episode, which is broadcast on the west coast at 11:35 PM PT, but the presenters of interview programs, actors, comedians, writers and even the former Disney chief had condemned the decision of ABC to stop production.
Hours before recording Tuesday's episode, Kimmel published on Instagram for the first time from his suspension, sharing a photo of himself with the iconic television creator Norman Lear. Kimmel subtitled the photo “missing this guy today.” The deceased Lear, with whom Kimmel collaborated in the television specials “live in front of a study audience”, was an open defender of freedom of expression and the first amendment and founded the organization People for the American Way, whose objective is to stop censorship as one of its many objectives.
Trump also resorted to social networks before Tuesday's episode to express his thoughts about Kimmel's return, writing about Truth Social that he could not believe that the program returned: “ABC told the White House that his program was canceled [sic]! “
“Why would they want to return to someone who does it wrong, not to be fun and to endanger the network by playing 99% positive Democratic garbage,” Trump continued. “It is another DNC arm and that I know, it would be an important illegal contribution of the campaign.”
Then he wrote that he wanted to “try ABC about this.”
“Let's see how we do it. The last time they stopped them, they gave me $ 16 million,” he wrote, referring to the agreement with ABC after Trump filed a demand for defamation on inaccurate statements about him for the news presenter ABC George Stephanopoulos. “This sounds even more lucrative. A true group of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel could be in his bad grades.”
The pressure to suspend Kimmel came from the head of FCC Carr, who said in a podcast interview with right -wing commentator Benny Johnson that ABC had to act on Kimmel's comments.
Hours later, Nexstar, who controls 32 ABC affiliates, agreed to drop “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Indefinitely, and ABC continued with his own announcement that he was taking Kimmel out of the network. Sinclair, who for a long time sympathized with the conservative causes, also filed the program and took another step by demanding that Kimmel make a financial contribution to the Kirk family and its conservative defense organization Turning Point USA.
The FCC commissioner, Anna M. Gómez, one of the three commissioners, and the only Democratic member, issued an abrasing statement the next day.
Gómez said that the FCC “does not have the authority, capacity or constitutional right to monitor the content or punish the speakers for the speech that the Government does not like” and described the measure of the network as a “shameful sample of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has placed the basis of the first amendment in danger.”
“When corporations surrender to that pressure, they endanger not only themselves, but to the right to free expression for everyone in this country,” Gomez continued. “The duty to defend the first amendment does not rest with the government, but with all of us. Freedom of expression is the basis of our democracy, and we must go back against any attempt to erode it.”
Times Stephen Battaglio and Meg James personnel contributed to this report.
