ABC announced it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show after his comments about the politics of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s assassin Sept. 17, according to The New York Times. The decision came days after President Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times Sept. 15, and a year after he won $16 million in a lawsuit with ABC.
The cancellation drew comparisons to CBS’s recent decision to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” as its parent company, Paramount, pursues a merger with Skydance Media, according to NBC News. Despite the show’s recent reinstatement, the situation sparked debate on the future of free speech and freedom of press under the pressure of the Trump administration, according to AP News.
This opening monologue, Kimmel said the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement was using Kirk’s assassination for political gain.
“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,” Kimmel said.
Many conservatives claimed the comment misrepresented the politics of Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s assassin, whose political standing is unconfirmed, according to NBC News. Hours before ABC’s announcement, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr suggested the commission would take action against the network.
In an official statement on the suspension of Kimmel’s show, FCC Commissioner Anne Gomez said ABC surrendering to the FCC by pulling Kimmel’s show is a threat to free speech.
“The FCC threatened to go after [the ABC], seizing on a late-night comedian’s inopportune joke as a pretext to punish speech it disliked,” Gomez said. “That led to a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger. When corporations surrender in the face of that pressure, they endanger not just themselves, but the right to free expression for everyone in this country. The duty to defend the First Amendment does not rest with government, but with all of us. Free speech is the foundation of our democracy, and we must push back against any attempt to erode it.”
Upper School History Teacher Jennifer Golub-Marcus said that comedy in politics has historically played an important role in talk shows.
“Talk show hosts going back to at least the 1960s with Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson have often made fun of politicians from both parties,” Golub-Marcus said. “That is part of their job, and part of their viewer’s expectation. What is more fun or justified in a democratic society than making fun of those in power, whether it is Barack Obama, J.D. Vance, or Donald Trump? In fact, many talk show hosts, like Jimmy Kimmel, got their start not as political analysts, but as professional comedians. So, in that context, Jimmy Kimmel does what talk show hosts traditionally do. They are both issuing a form of political commentary and going for laughs.”
Gian Ngo-Willis ’26, a viewer of Kimmel’s late night show, said that ABC’s decision was not warranted and raised concerns about the future of free speech in this country.
“One, it raises questions about freedom of speech,” Ngo-Willis said. “Two, pulling a show indefinitely is just an overreaction to, I think, one sentence that was said from Kimmel. They could have given him a warning [or] had longer talks about it, but the instant and immediate decision to completely cut the show is a gross overreaction. I don’t want to invoke a ‘slippery slope’ but it raises questions about what is next if our current administration is so in agreement about cutting things off that challenge or publicly scrutinize them.”
Golub-Marcus said the suspension of Kimmel’s show highlights the potential for change in American society.
“I feel it is a direct attack on the First Amendment,” Golub-Marcus said. “But America has always been a society in transition, moving from one thing to the next, so the interesting question to me with regards to the whole Jimmy Kimmel debate and the current struggle for power is, in what direction is America moving towards now? And where will we end up?”
