The return of Jimmy Kimmel to ABC waves overturned the political script, for a while aligning the night comedian with several conservative figures that do not agree with federal regulators who try to close it for freedom of expression, even when President Trump continued threatening the network.
“I want to thank the people who do not support my program and what I believe, but anyway I support my right to share those beliefs,” Kimmel told the spectators during his opening monologue on Tuesday night.
Trump in recent days has increased efforts to suffocate his political opposition and what he perceives as a liberal bias in the coverage of the media through regulatory demands and actions, a movement that has increasingly concerned to the supporters of the president and the influential conservative personalities.
The storm of fire on freedom of expression occurred following the comments that Kimmel made about how the “Maga gang” was trying to score political points of the murder of Charlie Kirk. In a conservative podcast, Brendan Carr, a loyal to Trump directed by the Federal Communications Commission, accused Kimmel of “the most sick behavior” and suggested that there could be regulatory consequences for local television stations whose programming did not serve the public interest.
After Disney took “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Outside the air in ABC last week, some Trump allies of high profile worried that the threat of regulating the speech was taking it too far, and that the conservatives could be the following if the federal government would move on.
“If we adopt the FCC extraction licenses of anyone who says something that does not agree, the next Democratic president who enters the White House will do this and will come after all the rights of the center,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Kimmel's critic, said Wednesday on his capsule, “Verd in Verdict with Ted Cruz” above in what Carr's threats said on Wednesday. “That is a slippery slope to oblivion.”
However, Trump felt dismayed by Kimmel's return and threatened legal actions, after a pattern in which he has sued the main media for his negative coverage.
“I think we are going to try ABC about this. Let's see how we do it,” Trump wrote Tuesday night on his social networks, suggesting that a lawsuit against the network could lead to a “lucrative” agreement. “A true group of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in their bad classifications.”
Combined, Trump's legal threats and Carr's comments have fed a strong debate about freedom of expression, and if Trump and Carr are trying to level the playing field for conservative voices or launch a coordinated and illegal attack to silence liberals. As a result, Carr, the author of an FCC chapter in the Playing Book of the 2025 right project, has landed in a focus of media attention and as the objective of an investigation of the Congress.
Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) And eight other Democratic senators wrote a letter to Carre on Wednesday expressing “serious concern” about the apparent role of the FCC in the suspension of Kimmel, and demanded answers about the role that the agency played in it and in its justification.
“The regulatory authority of the FCC on transmission licenses never intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical comments,” the senators wrote. “The mission of your agency is to serve the public interest, not act as an application arm for political remuneration against the media that dislike those in power.”
California Atty. General Rob Bonta has also written to Carr, accusing the Trump administration of “riding a dangerous attack against those who dare to speak against” and asking Carr to defend freedom of expression, even rejecting his previous comments about Kimmel.
In the days after Kimmel was marginalized, Cruz and other influential conservatives, who have long destroyed the night host of the whole night, expressed opposition to their situation based on concerns that the FCC may be trying to regulate speech in the waves.
“You don't have to like what someone says on television that agrees that the Government should not get involved here,” said the former Senate Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky in a social media post on Monday.
Podcast presenter Joe Rogan said he did not “think that the government should be involved, by dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue,” and told the conservatives that they are “crazy” if they do not believe that such tactics could “use” against them. Candace Owens, an extreme right influence, said that Kimmel's suspension was an attack on freedom of expression and said he does not agree that the government controls what can be said.
Ben Shapiro raised concerns about the possible overreach of the government.
“I do not want the FCC in the business to tell local affiliates that their licenses will be eliminated if they transmit material that the FCC considers that it is informally false,” Shapiro said, warning that “one day the shoe will be on the other foot.”
The conservative Podcastter Tucker Carlson said last week that he does not want to see that the “bad actors” use Kirk's murder as a means to restrict freedom of expression, which according to him is a cornerstone of Kirk's legacy.
“You expect that within a year, the agitation we are seeing after your murder will not take advantage to bring hate discourse to this country,” said Carlson.
In his initial monologue, Kimmel played the same theme. He said that Carr's tactics were “non -American” and compared them to what happens in authoritarian countries such as Russia.
“This show is not important,” he said. “The important thing is that we saw in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
In the podcast last week, Carr qualified Kimmel's comments on the alleged Kirk shooter “some of the most sick behaviors.” Then he said: “Frankly, when you see things like this, we can do this in the easy way or in the difficult way. There are ways to change the behavior, take measures, frankly, in Kimmel, or there will be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
On Monday, Carr denied the claims that he threatened to get the licenses from television stations and played a role in Kimmel's suspension, saying “that did not happen in any way or form.”
“They are completely misrepresenting the work of the FCC and what we have been doing,” he said during a conference in New York, accusing the Democrats of participating in a “projection and distortion campaign.”
Carr said that the FCC wants to train local owners of television stations to “go back to national programmers, even when they think there is some content that does not think about their trial, not in my judgment, but their judgment, it makes sense for local communities.”
What happened with Kimmel, said Car, is that local television stations “for the first time in a long time stood up and said:” We do not want to manage that program, at least at this time, “said Disney, a national programmer, then made his own commercial decision not to broadcast Kimmel for a few days.
After Disney brought the program, the owners of the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group station said they would not lead it in their ABC affiliates, hinting at future conflicts that could be developed in the media landscape.
Carr opened his chapter of the 2025 project on the FCC writing that the agency should “promote freedom of expression”, but has also been on Trump's side by criticizing the announcers for allegedly showing prejudices against conservatives and said he would use the agency's power to ensure that they serve the “public interest better.”
Bob Shrum, director of the Dornsife Center of the USC for the political future, said that the political fight on Kimmel has been interesting to see, partly due to the bipartisan reaction of the suspension and the apparent influence of the administration.
“I am encouraged that not only the Democrats complained about this, they are Republicans like Ted Cruz,” Shrum said. “That at least begins to establish a deterrence so that the federal government gets too far in this.”
While Trump was angry at Kimmel's return, Shrum found remarkable that his publication on social networks ended with the line: “Let Jimmy Kimmel could be in his bad grades.” He showed the limits that the president sees in his power to clean Kimmel of the waves, he said.
“That is not the last type of line that says: 'Let's go after you,” said Shrum.
