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ABC: Trump allegedly discussed sensitive nuclear submarine information with a Mar-a-Lago member | CNN Politics

CNN
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Former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about US nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, following his presidency, ABC reported Thursday.

The member is Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, sources told ABC. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Pratt, who had a close relationship with Trump when he occupied the Oval Office, was interviewed by the special counsel probing Trump’s retention of classified documents after leaving office. Another source told CNN’s Kristen Holmes that Pratt is on the list of potential witnesses for when the trial begins.

Sources told ABC that Pratt allegedly went on to share the information he received from the former president during an April 2021 meeting with “more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists.”

ABC also reported that according to sources, a former Mar-a-Lago employee told investigations that he was “bothered” by the former president disclosing such information to someone who is not a US citizen. He added that he heard Pratt sharing potentially sensitive information minutes after his meeting with the former president, sources told ABC.

These allegations were not included in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump over his handling of classified documents. But the incident was reported to and investigated by Smith’s team, according to ABC.

A Trump spokesperson slammed ABC’s report, telling CNN that the claims “lack proper context and relevant information.”

“The Department of Justice should investigate the criminal leaking, instead of perpetrating their baseless witch-hunts while knowing that President Trump did nothing wrong, has always insisted on truth and transparency, and acted in a proper manner, according to the law,” the spokesperson said.

CNN has reached out to Pratt, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Smith declined to comment.

Pratt allegedly told investigators that after he told Trump that Australia should buy submarines from the US, the former president went on to share how many nuclear warheads US submarines carry and “how close they can get to a Russian submarine without being detected,” sources told ABC. But Pratt told investigators that he was not shown any government documents, the sources said.

His company, Pratt Industries, opened a plant in Ohio while Trump was president. Trump attended the opening and praised the businessman in his remarks.

Another source told CNN’s Collins that during that visit, Pratt planned to unveil two plaques, an official one celebrating the plant’s opening in the US and a second one that he had told Trump about beforehand. The second plaque, which Pratt kept a secret until the day of the visit, read, “Make America and Australia Great Again.” But officials attending the plant’s opening quickly pulled it down and advised Pratt against the move, that source said.

CNN previously obtained an audio of a July 2021 meeting Trump had in his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, during which the former president acknowledged that he held on to a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran. The audio, exclusively reported by CNN, was a critical piece of evidence in the special counsel’s indictment.

Trump is facing 40 counts in the classified documents case, including willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. It is one of four cases in which the former president has been indicted.

Trump, who is seeking to return to the White House and remains the GOP front-runner, asked the judge presiding over the case late Wednesday to delay the trial until after the 2024 elections. A similar request was previously denied.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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October 5, 2023
Trump rages as former acolytes turn against him under legal heat | CNN Politics

CNN
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Donald Trump’s wealth, power and fame acted like a magnet for new associates keen to enter his orbit. But now, key figures who sought a share of his reflected glory are turning against him to save themselves.

The ex-president absorbed a trio of blows Tuesday that worsened his legal peril and underscored how the 2024 election – in which he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination – will play out in the courts rather than traditional voting battlegrounds.

In the most significant development, ABC News reported that Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had met federal prosecutors multiple times and had categorically undermined the ex-president’s narrative about a stolen election. Meadows was the gatekeeper to the Oval Office in the critical days when Trump was allegedly plotting to steal the 2020 election after voters rejected his bid for a second term. CNN has reached out to Meadows’ attorney for comment.

In another damaging twist, former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who blanketed television networks after President Joe Biden’s victory to falsely claim he was elected because of fraud, reached a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors. Ellis on Tuesday tearfully confessed to the felony of aiding and abetting false statements that she and other lawyers told Peach State lawmakers. She was the third former Trump acolyte to agree to testify against the ex-president and others this week. The election subversion prosecution brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now following the classic playbook of a racketeering case wherein smaller fish are peeled away for reduced sentences to secure their testimony against the alleged kingpin.

“If I knew then what I knew now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this experience with deep remorse,” Ellis said.

Ellis was a comparatively junior figure in Trump’s schemes to overthrow the election, although there is reason to believe she was in critical meetings of interest to prosecutors. Her guilty plea also looks like terrible news for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who also served as a Trump lawyer after the election and with whom Ellis worked closely.

Her repudiation of her own behavior marks an ominous omen for Trump because it shows that while falsehoods about election fraud are still a potent political force in the GOP and conservative media, it’s the truth that matters in court. Under the legal system, the former president could face a level of accountability that the US political system, which is still buckling under his influence, can’t match.

One of Trump’s former associates was feeling no remorse when he arrived in court in New York on Tuesday seeking to undermine another Trump legal defense. The former president’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, came face to face with his ex-boss for the first time in five years when he took the stand in a civil trial in which prosecutors are seeking to end Trump’s ability to do business in the state. Cohen has already gone to jail for tax fraud, making false statements to Congress and campaign finance violations – some of which were linked to his work for Trump before he launched his political career. Cohen once vowed to take a bullet for his former boss but has left no doubt that he’s been itching to testify against him for many months. While his own conviction raises credibility issues about his testimony, Cohen implicated Trump on Tuesday, saying his former boss directed him to inflate his net worth on financial statements.

“Heck of a reunion,” Cohen told reporters after testifying under Trump’s gaze.

Each of Tuesday’s legal dramas threatened to undermine Trump’s position in separate cases, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and emphasized how the Republican front-runner’s bid to recapture the White House will be shadowed by his criminal liability.

And for someone who has the exaggerated sense of loyalty harbored by Trump – albeit one that mostly goes one way – the spectacle of three former associates turning against him will be especially irksome.

While the crush of legal cases bearing down on him hasn’t diminished his dominance in the GOP presidential race, there are increasing signs that the courtroom pressure is beginning to grate on a former president who, in a lifetime of business, personal and political scrapes, has made an art form of dodging accountability.

In a rage-filled stream of consciousness on his Truth Social network on Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at the ABC report about Meadows.

“I don’t think Mark Meadows would lie about the Rigged and Stollen 2020 Presidential Election merely for getting IMMUNITY against Prosecution (PERSECUTION!),” the former president wrote.

“Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows? MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

This came only a day after Trump absurdly compared himself to Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison – much of it in a tiny cell on Robben Island – enduring forced labor in a quarry for opposing the racist apartheid system in South Africa. After his release, the Nobel Peace Prize winner remade his divided nation as president and became a symbol of unity, humility, racial healing and forgiveness – qualities rarely shown by Trump.

“I don’t mind being Nelson Mandela, because I’m doing it for a reason,” the ex-president told supporters in New Hampshire.

Trump’s persecution complex is revealing, however. The former president is portraying himself as a bulwark against a government that he claims is weaponized against him and his supporters. The idea that he is a political martyr who is being unfairly targeted by the Biden administration – despite 91 charges across his four criminal indictments – may be his only credible campaign tactic. After all, he may be a convicted felon by Election Day in less than 13 months. While that prospect doesn’t seem to faze Republican primary voters, it may be a serious vulnerability among a broader electorate.

Legal watchers in Washington have speculated for months about the activity of Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who became the last chief of staff of Trump’s turbulent White House term.

During his testimony before a federal grand jury, Meadows was also asked about efforts to overturn the election as well as Trump’s handling of classified documents, CNN previously reported.

But if, as ABC News has reported, he has been granted immunity by special counsel Jack Smith and met federal prosecutors multiple times, that qualifies for the over-used term of “bombshell.”

Haberman on why latest news on Mark Meadows feels ‘different’

Meadows is also a key figure in the Fulton County, Georgia, probe, where he made a failed effort to have his case elevated to federal court after unsuccessfully arguing his actions at the behest of Trump’s election thwarting effort fell under his official duties.

Meadows, who met Smith’s team at least three times this year, told investigators he did not believe the election was stolen and that Trump was being “dishonest” in claiming victory shortly after polls closed in 2020, according to ABC.

The agreement is the first publicly known in the special counsel’s investigation into the events around January 6, 2021. The exact terms of Meadows’ deal with prosecutors are not clear, but often such agreements allow a person with valuable information about an investigation immunity from prosecution in exchange for fully cooperating.

The reported details of Meadows’ testimony could be hugely damaging for Trump because a fundamental plank of the ex-president’s defense relies on the notion that he sincerely believed that the election was stolen and that his actions were not therefore criminal because they were an exercise of his right to free speech.

It has long been the case that while those around Trump in business and politics often find themselves slipping deep into legal trouble, he skips free. The apparent decisions of Meadows, Ellis and Cohen – together with the mass of legal threats now facing the former president – suggest that charmed life is about to meet its biggest challenge yet.

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August 2, 2023
NAACP Image Awards 2023: How to watch and why the show still matters | CNN

CNN
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The 54th NAACP Image Awards is a week-long celebration of excellence in film, TV, music and literature that will culminate in a televised ceremony Saturday.

And while areas of the entertainment industry have worked to become more inclusive and diverse in recent years, Kyle Bowser, senior vice president of the NAACP’s Hollywood Bureau, told CNN the organization’s annual awards ceremony is still vital.

“We do have an underlying mission, and ours is to broaden the scope, widen the lens, if you will, in the critique and the evaluation of what excellence looks like,” he said.

Multiple honors have already been awarded, including outstanding ensemble cast in a motion picture for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” outstanding host in a talk or news/information program to Jennifer Hudson and outstanding breakthrough creative (television) to Quinta Brunson for her work on “Abbott Elementary.”

That’s not to say the main ceremony Saturday won’t have star power as well.

The presenters list alone is A-list Black Hollywood with talent like Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Taye Diggs, Issa Rae, Janelle Monáe, Jonathan Majors, Kerry Washington, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Tracee Ellis Ross and Zendaya.

Not to mention Queen Latifah hosting.

“It’s an honor to host the 54th NAACP Image Awards, especially in the year we are celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop,” she said in a statement. “This is a night to celebrate Black excellence and Black contribution to our industry and beyond. Celebrating one another, lifting each other up and you know we’ll have fun doing it!”

There will also be several high-profile award recipients such as Serena Williams receiving the Jackie Robinson Sports Award and Gabrielle Union-Wade and Dwyane Wade the President’s Award.

The ceremony will air live Saturday at 8:00 p.m ET on BET. It will simulcast across Paramount Global networks, including BET HER, CBS, CMT, Comedy Central, LOGO, MTV, MTV2, Paramount Network, POP TV, Smithsonian, TV Land, and VH1.

A list of nominees in some of the 80 categories follows below.

A look back at some of the NAACP Image Awards Entertainer of the Year winners

Angela Bassett

Mary J. Blige

Quinta Brunson

Viola Davis

Zendaya

“A Jazzman’s Blues” (Netflix)

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

“Emancipation” (Apple TV)

“The Woman King” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

“TILL” (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)

Daniel Kaluuya – “Nope” (Universal Pictures)

Jonathan Majors – “Devotion” (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Joshua Boone – “A Jazzman’s Blues” (Netflix)

Sterling K. Brown – “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul” (Focus Features)

Will Smith – “Emancipation” (Apple)

Danielle Deadwyler – “TILL” (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)

Keke Palmer – “Alice” (Vertical Entertainment)

Letitia Wright – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

Regina Hall – “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul” (Focus Features)

Viola Davis – “The Woman King” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Aldis Hodge – Black Adam (Warner Bros. Pictures / New Line Cinema)

Cliff “Method Man” Smith – On The Come Up (Paramount Pictures)

Jalyn Hall – TILL (United Artists Releasing/Orion Pictures)

John Boyega – The Woman King (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Tenoch Huerta – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Marvel Studios)

Angela Bassett – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

Danai Gurira – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

Janelle Monáe – “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (Netflix)

Lashana Lynch – “The Woman King” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Lupita Nyong’o – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

“Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

“Atlanta” (FX)

“black-ish” (ABC)

“Rap S**t” (HBO Max)

“The Wonder Years” (ABC)

Anthony Anderson – “black-ish” (ABC)

Cedric The Entertainer – “The Neighborhood” (CBS)

Donald Glover – “Atlanta” (FX)

Dulé Hill – “The Wonder Years” (ABC)

Mike Epps – “The Upshaws” (Netflix)

Loretta Devine – “Family Reunion” (Netflix)

Maya Rudolph – “Loot” (Apple TV+)

Quinta Brunson – “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

Tichina Arnold – “The Neighborhood” (CBS)

Tracee Ellis Ross – “black-ish” (ABC)

Brian Tyree Henry – “Atlanta” (FX)

Deon Cole – “black-ish” (ABC)

Kenan Thompson – “Saturday Night Live” (NBC)

Tyler James Williams – “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

William Stanford Davis – “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

Janelle James – “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

Jenifer Lewis – “black-ish” (ABC)

Marsai Martin – “black-ish” (ABC)

Sheryl Lee Ralph – “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)

Wanda Sykes – “The Upshaws” (Netflix)

“Bel-Air” (Peacock)

“Bridgerton” (Netflix)

“Euphoria” (HBO Max)

“P-Valley” (Starz)

“Queen Sugar” (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)

Damson Idris – “Snowfall” (FX)

Jabari Banks – “Bel-Air” (Peacock)

Kofi Siriboe – “Queen Sugar” (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)

Nicco Annan – “P-Valley” (Starz)

Sterling K. Brown – “This Is Us” (NBC)

Angela Bassett – “9-1-1” (FOX)

Brandee Evans – “P-Valley” (Starz)

Queen Latifah – “The Equalizer” (CBS)

Rutina Wesley – “Queen Sugar” (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)

Zendaya – “Euphoria” (HBO Max)

Adrian Holmes – “Bel-Air” (Peacock)

Amin Joseph – “Snowfall” (FX)

Caleb McLaughlin – “Stranger Things” (Netflix)

Cliff “Method Man” Smith – “Power Book II: Ghost” (Starz)

J. Alphonse Nicholson – “P-Valley” (Starz)

Adjoa Andoh – “Bridgerton” (Netflix)

Bianca Lawson – “Queen Sugar” (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)

Loretta Devine – “P-Valley” (Starz)

Susan Kelechi Watson – “This Is Us” (NBC)

Tina Lifford – “Queen Sugar” (OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)

“Carl Weber’s The Black Hamptons” (BET Networks)

“From Scratch” (Netflix)

“The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey” (Apple TV+)

“Women of the Movement” (ABC)

Morris Chestnut – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Samuel L. Jackson – “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey” (Apple TV+)

Terrence Howard – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Trevante Rhodes – “Mike” (Hulu)

Wendell Pierce – “Don’t Hang Up” (Bounce TV)

Niecy Nash-Betts – “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” (Netflix)

Regina Hall – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Sanaa Lathan – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Viola Davis – “The First Lady” (Showtime)

Zoe Saldaña – “From Scratch” (Netflix)

Glynn Turman – “Women of the Movement” (ABC)

Keith David – “From Scratch” (Netflix)

Omar Benson Miller – “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey” (Apple TV+)

Russell Hornsby – “Mike” (Hulu)

Terrence “TC” Carson – “A Wesley Christmas” (AMC)

Alexis Floyd – “Inventing Anna” (Netflix)

Danielle Deadwyler – “From Scratch” (Netflix)

Melissa De Sousa – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Nia Long – “The Best Man: The Final Chapters” (Peacock)

Phylicia Rashad – “Little America” (Apple TV+)

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February 25, 2023
Barbara Walters, legendary news anchor, has died at 93 | CNN

CNN
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Barbara Walters, the pioneering TV journalist whose interviewing skills made her one of the most prominent figures in broadcasting, has died, her spokesperson confirmed to CNN. She was 93.

“Barbara Walters passed away peacefully in her home surrounded by loved ones. She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists but for all women,” Walters’ spokesperson Cindi Berger told CNN in a statement.

Walters began her national broadcast career in 1961 as a reporter, writer and panel member for NBC’s “Today” show before being promoted to co-hdst in 1974. In 1976, Walters joined ABC News as the first female anchor on an evening news program.

At that network, Walters launched “The Barbara Walters Specials” and “10 Most Fascinating People” before becoming a co-host and correspondent for ABC News’ “20/20” in 1984. Along the way, she interviewed every US president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon.

For more than five decades, Walters was a name to reckon with, whether speaking with world leaders on news programs, in celebrities’ homes for her regular “Barbara Walters Specials” or on “The View,” a daytime talk show in which a diverse panel of women discuss the latest headlines.

Her shows, some of which she produced, were some of the highest-rated of their type and spawned a number of imitators. Indeed, “The View” – which debuted in 1997 – paved the way for American talk shows “The Talk” and “The Chew,” as well as such entries as Britain’s “Loose Women” and Norway’s “Studio5.”

Walters left “The View” in 2014, but remained a part-time contributor to ABC News for two years.

“I knew it was time,” Walters told CNN’s Chris Cuomo at the time. “I like all the celebration, that’s great, but in my heart, I thought, ‘I want to walk away while I’m still doing good work.’ So I will.”

Looking upon the numerous women who had looked up to her throughout her career, Walters said they were her legacy.

“How do you say goodbye to something like 50 years in television?” she said in conclusion. “How proud when I see all the young women who are making and reporting the news. If I did anything to help make that happen, that is my legacy. From the bottom of my heart, to all of you with whom I have worked and who have watched and been by my side, I can say: ‘Thank you.’ “

Walters was married four times, to business executive Robert Katz, producer Lee Guber and twice to entertainment mogul Merv Adelson. The second marriage to Adelson ended in 1992. She is survived by her daughter, Jackie, whom she and Guber adopted in 1968.

Walters was born September 25, 1929, in Boston. Her father, Lou, was a nightclub owner and theatrical impresario, and young Barbara grew up around celebrities – one reason she never appeared fazed by interviewing them.

Walters earned her college degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1953. 

Notoriously competitive, Walters was dogged in her pursuit of big “get” interviews, so much so that there were long-standing reports of rivalry between her and another of ABC’s news stars, such as Diane Sawyer, who joined the network in 1989. That included, most recently, jockeying to land the first interview with Caitlyn Jenner, which Sawyer conducted in 2015.

Walters, though, was no slacker in terms of landing major interviews, including presidents, world leaders and almost every imaginable celebrity, with a well-earned reputation for bringing her subjects to tears. Highlights included her 1999 interview with Monica Lewinsky – which was watched by an average of 48.5 million viewers – and a historic 1977 joint sit-down with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin.

Walter’s first job on air was on NBC’s “Today” show in the 1960s, where she reported what were then perceived as “women’s stories.” In 1974, she was officially named co-anchor of the show. Two years later she became, for a time, the best-known person in television when she left “Today” to join ABC as the first woman to co-anchor a network evening newscast, signing for a then-startling $1 million a year.

Though her term in that position was short-lived – co-anchor Harry Reasoner never warmed to her – she had the last laugh, staying at the network for almost four decades and co-hosting the magazine show “20/20” (with her old “Today” colleague, Hugh Downs), “The View” and countless specials.

She was both mercilessly parodied – on the early “Saturday Night Live,” Gilda Radner mocked her as the sometimes mush-mouthed “BabaWawa” – and richly honored, with multiple Emmys, a Peabody and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Sometimes seen as brash, usually by men questioning her forthright demeanor, she could only shrug at the criticism.

“If it’s a woman, it’s caustic; if it’s a man, it’s authoritative. If it’s a woman it’s too pushy, if it’s a man it’s aggressive in the best sense of the word,” she once observed.

Barbara Walters’ life in pictures

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December 30, 2022
‘Love Actually’ cast to reunite for 20th anniversary TV special | CNN

Editor’s Note: “Tis the Season: The Holidays on Screen” celebrates the most beloved holiday films and television specials. The special airs Sunday, November 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CNN.

CNN
—

One of the most beloved modern Christmas classics is turning 20 next year, and to mark the occasion, cast members from the landmark 2003 romantic comedy “Love Actually” are reuniting for a TV special to air on ABC next week, the network announced Tuesday.

Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are taking part in the special, along with the film’s writer-director Richard Curtis.

In a promotional clip shared by ABC program “20/20” on Twitter, Diane Sawyer asks the cast to fill in the sentence, “Love actually is…,” to which Grant drolly answers, “Dead!”

According to ABC, the special will look at how the film successfully corralled a diverse ensemble to create a charming and winsome film examining various loving relationships during a frantic month leading up to Christmas in London, England, going on to become a beloved holiday tradition around the world.

The program, which comes a little early, considering the film was released on November 6, 2003, will also look at how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the ways people interact, love and connect, and the all-important need for kindness in families and communities.

The new reunion is not the first time the actors from “Love Actually” – who also include Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson and Colin Firth – have come together again.

In 2017, a short sequel to the film was produced for NBC in honor of Red Nose Day, a charity for children in need created by Curtis.

“The Laughter & Secrets of ‘Love Actually’: 20 Years Later – A Diane Sawyer Special” airs Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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November 23, 2022
Jimmy Kimmel says he was going to quit his show if ABC asked him to stop making Trump jokes | CNN

CNN
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Jimmy Kimmel claims he was ready to walk out on his longtime late-night hosting gig if his bosses at ABC asked him to stop making jokes about then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

The comedian, who has been hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on the network since 2003, said on the most recent episode of Sticher’s “Naked Lunch” podcast that he was willing to quit his job if the constraint was placed on him.

Kimmel said concern was “hinted at” by executives “right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing,” when he says the network’s research found he’d lost half of his fanbase – “maybe more” – as he began making more jokes about the former reality star.

“Ten years ago, among Republicans, I was the most popular talk show host. At least according to the research they did,” Kimmel said.

But regardless of that slip in popularity among certain circles, Kimmel said at the time that he was simply not willing to refrain from making jokes about Trump.

“I said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, I understand, I don’t begrudge you for it, but I’m not going to do that. If you want someone else to host the show, that’s fine with me. I’m just not going to do it like that,’” Kimmel remembered saying.

CNN has reached out to ABC for comment.

Kimmel has previously credited people like David Letterman and former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart for being leaders in how to address more difficult subjects, including hot-button political issues.

“You watch the news all day, you see what’s going on, how do you walk on stage and ignore it? It just doesn’t work anymore,” Kimmel said in 2019. “I wish I could. It’s hard for me to talk about serious subjects. It takes a lot out of me. I do want to be funny. That’s fun.”

Kimmel renewed his deal with ABC earlier this year that will keep him in his hosting chair for three more years. His contract had been set to expire in 2023.

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November 3, 2022