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Tag: Jimmy Kimmel

  • What does the name Department of War say about American priorities? | Opinion

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    Our country has generally worked to help create a more peaceful world.

    Our country has generally worked to help create a more peaceful world.

    Sipa USA

    Different focus

    With the name change from the Department of Defense to the Department of War, the United States is now promoting and declaring that war is acceptable. This goes against what we honor and recognize in the world. We are accepting the killing of our fellow human beings.

    Why don’t we instead change the name to the Department of Peace? This would promote conflict resolution through negotiation. It would emphasize that all conflicts can have a nonviolent resolution where all parties express their needs and ensures those needs are met.

    We have generally worked to help create a more peaceful world. Why do we now want to tell the world that war is a priority? Working together with respect, dignity and kindness would help create a better world.

    – Leonard Ellis, Arlington

    Animal cruelty

    It is shocking that there is a Texas school with so little supervision that a teacher could feed live kittens to a snake and let children know about it. (Oct. 1, 6A, “North Texas teacher apologizes for feeding live kitten to snake in classroom”) That teacher should not only be fired, she should also be barred from teaching. She should receive a financial penalty and jail time.

    – Frankie Andrew, Willow Park

    Ultimate sacrifice

    In his Oct. 1 column, Bradford William Davis wrote that President Donald Trump aims to silence his opponents. (11A, “Jimmy Kimmel is back on ABC, but Trump still threatens free speech”) Everyone seems to forget that the Biden administration pressured social media to silence and ban people who questioned the origins of COVID-19 or the effectiveness of the vaccine. Military members lost their jobs for refusing the vaccine.

    Jimmy Kimmel’s show was preempted because of his egregious lie about Charlie Kirk’s assassin. Kimmel did not give those opposing his political views a voice on his show, unlike Kirk, who encouraged dialogue with people who disagreed with him. It is heartbreaking that so many on the left are outraged by Kimmel’s suspension but are unable to feel the same over a young man who paid the ultimate sacrifice for his freedom of speech.

    – Gena Himes, Fort Worth

    Partisan respect

    President Donald Trump’s governing imbalance is demonstrated by his failure to respectfully respond when Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated. Flags were not flown at half staff. He did not attend the memorial service.

    Compare those abhorrent governing decisions with Trump’s overflowing respect and adulation for Charlie Kirk. He and several government officials flew to Arizona to attend a five-hour memorial service, where Trump spoke profusely about Kirk and hailed him as a martyr.

    How can Americans be expected to move past the hatred and animosity for opposing political perspectives when the president governs by playing sides?

    – Brent Neuenfeldt, Fort Worth

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  • Jimmy Kimmel explains how he learned he was being yanked off the air — and thought he’d never return

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    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.”It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.”So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.””I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.”I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.Colbert couldn’t get the line outColbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.”I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

    CNN —

    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.

    “It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”

    Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.

    “So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”

    The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.”

    “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”

    Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.

    “I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”

    Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.

    ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.

    Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.

    Colbert couldn’t get the line out

    Colbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.

    Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.

    “I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”

    Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

    Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.

    Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”

    Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”

    Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

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  • Stephen Colbert Recalls Moment He Found Out ‘The Late Show’ Was Canceled and Delivering the News to His Staff: ‘I Had Sweat Through My Shirt’

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    Jimmy Kimmel hosted fellow late-night frontman Stephen Colbert on his show Tuesday night, and during the interview, Colbert recalled how he found out “The Late Show” had been canceled and how he told his staff.

    Colbert said the news was first delivered to him via a two and a half hour phone call with his manager, James Dixon, who had known for a week prior but didn’t want to tell Colbert while he was on vacation. Colbert then told his wife, who was adamant that he tell his staff as soon as possible.

    “She said, ‘Are you going to tell the staff?’” Colbert recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know. Maybe I will tell them after the summer break.’ She said, ‘You are going to tell them tomorrow.’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ She said, ‘I am coming to work with you tomorrow because I think you are telling your staff.’ I get up in the elevator. I had sweat through my shirt. I didn’t want to know anything my staff didn’t know.”

    At first, Colbert only told his executive producers so that the rest of the staff wouldn’t be affected while taping. After the episode was shot, Colbert told his crew and the audience, “Nobody leave. We have one more act of the show.”

    “My stage manager said, ‘We are done,’” Colbert said. “I said, ‘No, there is one more act of the show. Please don’t let the audience go.’ He said, ‘No, boss, we are done.’ I said, ‘I am aware of that. I am here to tell you there is one more act of the show.’”

    Colbert said he was very nervous when going back on stage to deliver the news, made worse by the fact that there was no teleprompter. The late-night host recalls the audience snickering at first, thinking it was a joke. But when he finally said his piece, no one was laughing.

    “I was so nervous about doing it,” Colbert explained. “There was nothing on the prompter. I fucked up twice. I had to restart, and the audience thought it was a bit. They started going, ‘You can do it. Come on Steve. You can do it.’ I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. I got to the sentence that told them what was happening, and they didn’t laugh. They didn’t laugh. That is it. That is how I did it.”

    In July, CBS announced that “The Late Show” would be canceled after the next TV season, citing the move as a “financial decision.” Some speculated that the move was actually to appease the FCC and ensure a smooth merger between Paramount, CBS’s parent company, and Skydance Media.

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    Jack Dunn

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  • How Many Streaming Subscribers Did Disney Lose After Suspending Kimmel?

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    Disney lost 1.7 million paid streaming subscribers who cancelled service in the immediate aftermath of ABC pulling Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves, according to journalist Marisa Kabas. Kimmel’s show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, was suspended for a week after President Donald Trump’s FCC pressured local TV stations to drop the late-night host, though he’s since been returned to the air.

    “Disney saw more than 1.7 million total paid streaming cancelations during the period 9/17-9/23, a Disney source confirms to me. The total includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN,” Kabas wrote on Bluesky Monday.

    Kabas reports that 1.7 million was 436% above a subscriber loss that’s typical for the same period, though Disney didn’t immediately respond to Gizmodo’s questions about the report. Kabas broke a story last week in The Handbasket about a planned price increase for Disney+. Disney announced Kimmel was coming back shortly before the price increase was officially announced.

    Calls to cancel Disney-owned streaming services went viral across several social media platforms as a way to express discontent with Disney’s decision. And it’s not clear how many subscribers may plan to return since Kimmel is back on the air.

    Jimmy Kimmel’s show became a flashpoint for the culture wars after the murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, when he was shot while speaking on a college campus in Utah. Kimmel made a comment that some interpreted as the host insisting that the shooter was a Trump supporter, even though Kimmel said it’s not what he intended.

    But that comment sent off a flurry of confused outrage online, and FCC chairman Brendan Carr took the opportunity on Benny Johnson’s podcast to call Kimmel’s comment “some of the sickest conduct possible.” Carr then went on to make mobster-like threats against the TV stations that air Kimmel.

    “Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way or these companies can find ways to change conduct… to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” said Carr.

    Carr’s comments were obviously made in bad faith, but they were very predictable. President Trump celebrated Stephen Colbert’s cancellation at CBS over the summer and explicitly said that Kimmel would be “next,” along with Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers at NBC. Trump has seethed at comedians who make fun of him, a typical reaction among autocrats historically. And his FCC clearly feels emboldened to put pressure on media companies to get rid of any content that doesn’t fully support the president.

    Trump even said on Air Force One recently that any TV network that criticizes him should lose its license, falsely insisting, “they’re not allowed to do that.” People can go on TV to criticize politicians all they like, which is considered protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

    Kimmel’s show returned to the air last week and, despite a couple of days with Sinclair and Nexstar preempting the show in several markets, they eventually dropped their boycott. Local ABC affiliates in the U.S. all show Jimmy Kimmel Live now, though it seems clear that Trump and his government aren’t going to give up so easily.

    Any dissent on TV is too much dissent for Trump. And the famously thin-skinned president will continue to erode freedoms in the U.S. as long as he remains in power. The only question is what lever he tries to pull next to get guys like Kimmel off the air.

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    Matt Novak

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  • What the Right Really Means When It Says ‘Free Speech’

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    Charlie Kirk and his intellectual godfather, William F. Buckley Jr.
    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

    When Jimmy Kimmel returned to television on Tuesday evening, the late-night host had sharp words for the conservatives who’d briefly forced him off the air. President Donald Trump had put Disney, which owns ABC and made the call to suspend Kimmel, at risk by making “it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs,” the comedian said. “Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”

    Kimmel had attracted Trump’s ire by suggesting Kirk’s murderer was one of the “MAGA gang,” but previously he was not the most obvious target of the anti-speech right. Once known for co-hosting The Man Show, his late-night persona has always been a bit sedate. As he’s since discovered, the Kirk murder has become a useful pretext for political repression. Kimmel might be the right’s most famous target, but he isn’t alone: Public universities and school districts have fired educators for criticizing Kirk and his work. At least eight servicemembers have been disciplined for comments about the late influencer, and conservative social-media users have targeted “dozens” more across most branches of the military, Task & Purpose reported. Apple TV has postponed The Savant, which stars Jessica Chastain as an undercover researcher focused on right-wing extremism. The Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attiah for Bluesky posts arguing, in part, against “the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.” Last week, a conservative influencer claimed a Starbucks barista refused to write Kirk’s name on her drink, citing company policy. Amid backlash, Starbucks announced that customers could force workers to write political “names,” but not slogans, on cups.

    By punishing Kimmel and others for speech, the right has opened itself up to the accusation of hypocrisy. Conservatives often say they are victims of progressive intolerance, and Trump fashioned himself into their champion. Not long after he returned to power in January, he signed an executive order to restore “freedom of speech” and end “federal censorship,” loosely defined. FCC chair Brendan Carr said he would defend the First Amendment or, as he tweeted in 2024, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.” Kimmel must not count. Last week, Carr kicked off the Kimmel suspension by telling the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson that media companies should “change conduct to take action on Kimmel” or “there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Yet Carr is not a hypocrite, and neither is Trump. They aren’t inconsistent; they simply do not share a basic commitment to free speech with their liberal critics. Instead, they operate within a much older and more restrictive tradition on the right. To a subset of prominent conservative writers and thinkers, free speech has always been a limited concept. There is good speech, which must be privileged, and bad speech, which must be punished.

    Conservatives who favor the asymmetric right to free speech do so because it serves a deeper political project. That essential dynamic has played out on the American campus for decades, but it is not limited to the Ivy League; it has censored journalists, ended acting careers, and deported immigrants. If dissent no longer exists, neither does a meaningful opposition. An anonymous Kimmel writer got it right. “Even if Jimmy was willing to publicly apologize and donate money to whatever ghoulish conservative group that is demanding it … MAGA people will never be happy,” they told journalist Rick Ellis. “It will never be enough.”

    A few years before William F. Buckley Jr. founded the National Review, he picked a fight with his alma mater. In his mind, Yale University had nurtured atheism and a certain anti-Americanism under the guise of academic freedom. “Individualism is dying at Yale, and without a fight,” he wrote in 1951’s God and Man at Yale, his first book. Buckley’s evidence was thin. Outspoken Marxists and communists were rare on campus, as the writer McGeorge Bundy pointed out at the time, and that forced Buckley to rely on the more nebulous charge of “collectivism.” Buckley attacked a selection of assigned economic texts for “unsound” collectivist principles and complained, “Not one of them so much as pays lip-service to the highly respectable doctrine that it is anti-democratic to take from someone what the people in the first instance decide to give him.” Yale had also drifted too far from its Christian origins, Buckley charged, and cited the chair of the Religion Department, who was an ordained minister but “does not seek to persuade his students to believe in Christ, largely because he has not, as I understand it, been completely able to persuade himself.” The young Buckley wanted to change the way Yale operated so it would promote good speech, not bad speech, as he set the terms. He wrote that Yale’s charter bestowed the “responsibility to govern” on the institution’s alumni, who were more Christian and individualistic than its current leaders, so they should take charge. “Freedom is in no way violated by an educational overseer’s insistence that the teacher he employs hold a given set of values,” he argued.

    God and Man at Yale enthralled conservatives as the Second Red Scare dawned. Even a facetious charge of Bolshevism could ruin a person’s career or life; to Buckley, this was less a problem than an opportunity. With his friend and brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell Jr., he published McCarthy and His Enemies in 1954. The best-selling book was not wholly uncritical of Joseph McCarthy but defended his tactics and goals from detractors. As one contemporary review in the Times put it, Buckley and Bozell believed that “while damage to a reputation may result from McCarthy’s practice of this method, the result would not appear to be part of the method” itself. McCarthy, they added, deserves praise for promoting a “conformity” of thought. As Buckley rose, McCarthyism racked up casualties. In 1952, Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, an economics professor, because she refused to tell Senate investigators whether she had ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. A New York Times obituary published at her death in 2017 observed that she “neither taught economics again nor wrote a sequel” to her seminal work, Economic History of a Factory Town.

    The MAGA world has many influences, of which Buckley is merely one, but it’s not all that difficult to detect his McCarthyism, campus obsessions, and flair for spectacle in the conservatives who have followed. Roger Kimball published Tenured Radicals in 1990. Before Dinesh D’Souza started selling fake Christmas trees, the Dartmouth graduate published Illiberal Education in 1998. The genre is still potent, as Jacob Heilbrunn recently noted at Washington Monthly: Christopher Rufo, another campus crusader, published America’s Cultural Revolution in 2023. Buckley was “certainly a pioneer of politics as entertainment,” writer Sam Adler-Bell argued in a review of Sam Tanenhaus’s new biography of the man. Despite his intellectual affect and patrician accent, Buckley’s true heirs are “MAGA celebrities” like the late Kirk, in form as well as substance, Adler-Bell wrote. Buckley once defended the Jim Crow regime in an editorial for the National Review because white Southerners are “for the time being, the advanced race,” and the central problem the South faced was “not how to get the vote” for Black Americans, “but how to equip” them along with “many whites to cast an enlightened and responsible vote.” Decades later Buckley said he’d erred by thinking America would “evolve” out of Jim Crow without intervention, but he was hardly a champion of civil rights, and his prejudices are still potent. Kirk once accused “prowling Blacks” of targeting white city dwellers and said that prominent Black women such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”

    The object of that shared project is domination. A thriving network of Christian colleges and universities existed well before 1951, when he wrote his first book, but that wasn’t good enough. He wanted the Ivy League, too. If he could force Yale to teach the right ideas — to say the right words in the right order — future elites would have the right values and the right politics. The campus has been a conservative object of desire ever since. In 2023, Rufo helped take control of the New College of Florida at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis and conducted an ideological purge. In one example, Rufo said the public university would not renew a visiting professor’s contract on account of his left-wing speech. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be employed by a taxpayer-funded university,” he tweeted.

    When Trump regained power earlier this year, he trained the full might of the federal government on immigrant scholars with inconvenient ideas. Masked ICE agents arrested Rümeysa Öztürk on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, because she had co-authored a pro-Palestinian editorial. The Trump administration is still trying to deport Mahmoud Khalil for his pro-Palestinian activism — an act of repression that Kirk, the supposed defender of free speech, supported. What’s more, the right wing’s war for the campus was never limited to higher education at all. Kimmel is back on air now, but the era of the Hollywood blacklist does not feel so distant.

    When institutions capitulate, individual liberties soon follow, and courage can have life-altering consequences. After Queens College fired Vera Shlakman, it moved on to her former student, economist Mark Blaug, then a tutor. “For a day or two, I contemplated a magnificent protest,” Blaug wrote in 2000, “a statement that would ring down the ages as a clarion bell to individual freedom, that would be read and cited for years to come by American high school students — and then I quietly sent in my letter of resignation.” Conformity is popular because it feels safe, and that is as true now as it has been during each iteration of the Red Scare. Disney sacrificed Kimmel at the slightest pressure from the White House, and although they brought him back, their cowardice bodes ill. By the end of July, nine elite law firms “capitulated” to White House pressure by “pledging nearly $1 billion in free work” to the administration, Reuters reported. The University of California at Berkeley recently shared 160 names of students and faculty with White House officials in response to a purported antisemitism probe.

    Still, some liberals are pondering accommodation. In the New York Times, the president of Barnard College condemned “groupthink” and wrote, “The purpose of higher education is not to advance one viewpoint over another, but to provide our students with the tools and training they need to examine and challenge all beliefs, including their own.” The writer Jerusalem Demsas offered a more radical solution in a piece for The Argument. Universities should prioritize the hiring of conservative faculty even if they are “less qualified” than their liberal peers. “A university made up of only the left-leaning sons and daughters of the wealthy will reproduce an unrepresentative elite and an unrepresentative body of work, thus precipitating its own undoing,” she argued, but that misunderstands the problem. Elite schools are skewed to the wealthy, certainly, and we should make them more egalitarian. But if conservatives are sorting themselves into less-selective institutions, as she says, we should also entertain the possibility that they seek the conformity of Buckley and Bozell. My alma mater, Cedarville University, promises students “exceptional academics with a biblical worldview.” The goal is to create a bubble.

    Worse: As the right-wing embraces the fringe, it will produce writers and thinkers who are more likely to espouse nonsense. It doesn’t make much sense for Yale to hire a creationist who studied geology at Cedarville in the name of disagreement on campus. Reality is not a viewpoint, but it can look like one to those who deny it. Any college that teaches factual science or history or medicine will face accusations of groupthink, if it has not already. Trickier still, some ideologies are more evidence-based than others. Conspiracy theorists have the right to believe what they want, but that doesn’t mean they should get a megaphone whenever they ask for one. Conservatives including Vice-President J.D. Vance have defended the Kimmel suspension because liberals hurt free speech first; they’re still angry that the Biden administration urged social-media platforms to curb COVID misinformation. But the acts are not equivalent to each other. When people spread lies about a deadly pandemic, it’s not obviously a virtue to let them continue.

    If we’re to defend free speech from its enemies, we can’t be content with platitudes. We will have to think more critically about conservative politics and what they signify for the future of our democracy. By this, I do not mean that we should strip conservatives of their First Amendment rights. Instead I favor a certain bitter honesty. At this point in the MAGA era, there is no reason to assume that the right wing and its critics speak the same language, share foundational values, or live in the same reality. There are exceptions, and I think we should always strive to persuade, but we must be realistic about the intellectual and political challenges we face. They aren’t exactly new. As the socialist critic Irving Howe wrote in 1954, “No easy certainties and no easy acceptance of uncertainty.” We do not have to accept the terms the foes of democracy would impose on us. To Howe, “the banner of critical independence, ragged and torn though it may be, is still the best we have.” Now is not the moment to set that banner down.

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    Sarah Jones

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  • Nexstar and Sinclair are bringing back Kimmel, but many viewers may have found alternatives while he was blacked out | Fortune

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    Nexstar joined Sinclair on Friday in calling off its Jimmy Kimmel boycott just days after ABC returned the comedian to late-night television. 

    Beginning Friday night, Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to air on the ABC affiliates, which had preempted the show last week over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

    “As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve,” a Nexstar statement said.  “We stand apart from cable television, monolithic streaming services, and national networks in our commitment–and obligation–to be stewards of the public airwaves.”

    Similarly, Sinclair issued a statement earlier on Friday reversing its decision to keep the comedian off its airwaves.

    It cited “feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives.”

    Sinclair had previously vowed not to put Kimmel back on air unless meetings were held with ABC to discuss the network’s “commitmentment to professionalism and accountability.”

    Those discussions are still ongoing, though ABC and Disney have not yet accepted any measures proposed by Sinclair, which included a network-wide independent ombudsman, per the company’s Friday release.

    The stand-down comes days after Kimmel’s first episode back on air had the highest ratings for a regularly scheduled episode in over a decade. His monologue at the top of the show ranged from the First Amendment and the Trump administration to Erica Kirk’s speech at her late husband’s memorial, garnering over 21 million views on YouTube in just a couple days—the most for a monologue in his show’s history.

    Kimmel’s comeback on Tuesday drew 6.3 million TV viewers, about four times the show’s average, despite nearly a quarter of ABC’s national reach blacking out his return episode. Sixty-six local stations owned by the ABC affiliates did not broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but this cost them a natural influx of viewership, and possibly some of their market, according to media experts.

    “Blackouts like this often highlight the strength of digital platforms,” Natalie Andreas, a communications professor at the University of Texas, told Fortune. 

    Instead of limiting reach, blackouts push viewers toward spaces like YouTube where content spreads faster, lingers longer, and attracts new audiences who may not have tuned in live, she said.

    Susan Keith, a professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information, told Fortune the blackouts can push viewers to seek—and easily find—Kimmel on their digital cable packages or YouTube if local stations didn’t air the show.

    “There’s this idea of public interest, necessity and convenience that over-the-air broadcast media were supposed to fulfill,” she said. “So if we all move to streaming services for content because (of) incidents like this one,” it trains viewers to seek media this way.

    Earlier this year, streaming overtook cable and broadcast as America’s most-watched form of TV, according to Nielsen data. 

    The FCC does not license TV or radio networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox, but rather individual stations that may air programming from these networks. But the shift to streaming has raised questions about what its continued role might be as viewers lean away from individual broadcast stations. 

    “I think this is an open question,” Keith said. “I think we don’t really know what to think about the ultimate usefulness of the FCC.”

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

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    Nino Paoli

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Returns as Sinclair Ends Blackout After Backlash

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    After days of silence and mounting criticism, Sinclair ended its blackout and put Jimmy Kimmel Live! back on air for millions of ABC households.

    Jimmy Kimmel at the 96th Annual Oscars held at Dolby Theatre on March 10
    Credit: (Photo by Rich Polk/Variety via Getty Images)

    When loyal viewers tuned into Jimmy Kimmel Live! This week, many were met with an empty slot instead of the late-night host’s trademark monologues and celebrity appearances. For millions of households that are served by Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ABC affiliates, Kimmel simply vanished from the air.

    This disappearance wasn’t caused by a production hiccup or contract dispute. But rather, Sinclair quietly blacked out the show after Kimmel made comments about Donald Trump and the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk – remarks critics labeled as insensitive, which sparked swift backlash. In a rare move, one of the nation’s largest broadcast networks indefinitely pulled the plug on the program that has aired for more than two decades now, triggering an outcry far beyond Kimmel’s fan base.

    The blackout of the show was trending across all social media platforms, with hashtags demanding Kimmel’s return trended for days. Maybe people accused Sinclair of crossing a dangerous line, arguing that private cooperation was deciding what millions of people could and could not watch. The FCC even signaled interest in reviewing that decision, mentioning concerns about free expression. 

    By Friday, after pulling the show, the pressure from the public was impossible to ignore. Sinclair announced it would reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live! starting with Friday evening’s broadcast, ending the blackout and restoring the late-night staple to its regular slot on air.

    In a brief statement, the company framed the move as a resolution of “viewer concerns,” but offered little to no explanation for its initial decision.

    For Kimmel, the return marks a continuation of a 22-year run defined by political satire and cultural commentary. For viewers, it is proof that public pushback still has power and matters. But the blackout has also cracked open an unsettling debate – if one late-night host can be silenced, even briefly, what does that mean for the future of television in an age of polarizing and corporate influence?

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    Melissa Houston

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  • Jimmy Kimmel’s show returning to all remaining ABC stations, companies say – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Two U.S. companies will allow Jimmy Kimmel Live! to return to their ABC stations’ airwaves Friday, ending a brief boycott launched after the show’s return.

    In a statement posted on social media, Sinclair Broadcast Group said Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show will return to all of its 38 ABC affiliate stations effective Sept. 26.

    “Over the last week, we have received thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers, and community leaders representing a wide range of perspectives,” Sinclair said in the statement.

    The company also said it noticed “troubling acts of violence,” referencing the shooting into the lobby of a Sacramento ABC station last Friday.

    “These events underscore why responsible broadcasting matters and why respectful dialogue between differing voices remains so important,” Sinclair added.

    A short time later, Nexstar Media Group said it would also return Kimmel’s show to its 28 ABC affiliate stations beginning Friday night.

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    “We have had discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company and appreciate their constructive approach to addressing our concerns,” the company said in a statement.

    “As a local broadcaster, Nexstar remains committed to protecting the First Amendment while producing and airing local and national news that is fact-based and unbiased and, above all, broadcasting content that is in the best interest of the communities we serve.”

    Kimmel was allowed to return to work, and hosted the show again on Sept. 23 after the network said it had “thoughtful conversations” with Kimmel.


    Click to play video: 'Kimmel returns to late-night, says didn’t intend ‘to make light’ of Charlie Kirk’s murder'


    Kimmel returns to late-night, says didn’t intend ‘to make light’ of Charlie Kirk’s murder


    Both Sinclair and Nexstar said this week they would continue to keep Kimmel off their ABC airwaves despite the return, but said they remained in conversations with ABC and Disney.

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    “In our ongoing and constructive discussions with ABC, Sinclair proposed measures to strengthen accountability, viewer feedback, and community dialogue, including a network-wide independent ombudsman,” Sinclair said Friday.

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    It noted the company has yet to adopt those measures.

    ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! completely on Sept. 17 after the namesake host made comments during a broadcast about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    The suspension was announced shortly after Nexstar and Sinclair said they would pre-empt Kimmel’s show.

    Brendan Carr, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, suggested earlier that same day that companies should take action against Kimmel over his comments “or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr added, comments that Democrats and other critics have said amounted to government pressure on affiliate stations, ABC and Disney.

    United States President Donald Trump has been openly critical of the late-night host in the past, among others, and has previously suggested putting pressure on networks to have their shows cancelled.


    Click to play video: 'Fallon, Kimmel are ‘next’ after Colbert cancellation and Stern exit: Trump'


    Fallon, Kimmel are ‘next’ after Colbert cancellation and Stern exit: Trump


    Trending Now

    Trump spoke at a press conference last month and responded to reporters saying:

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    “Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent. They’re next. They’re going to be going. I hear they’re going to be going. I don’t know, but I would imagine because they’d get — you know, Colbert has better ratings than Kimmel or Fallon,” Trump said.

    In its statement, Sinclair said its earlier decision to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! was done without government pressure.

    “Our decision to pre-empt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” it said.

    Nexstar also insisted its decisions were made due to its commitment “to be stewards of the public airwaves and to protect and reflect the specific sensibilities of our communities.”


    “To be clear, our commitment to those principles has guided our decisions throughout this process, independent of any external influence from government agencies or individuals,” the company’s statement said.

    Nexstar last month announced a $6.2 billion deal to buy TEGNA Inc., which owns 64 other TV stations.

    The deal would require the FCC to change rules limiting the number of stations a single company can own. Carr has expressed openness to changing the rule.

    Sinclair has also petitioned the FCC to relax its rules limiting broadcaster ownership of stations.

    Kimmel has referenced the decision to not air his show on some stations since returning to ABC this week.

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    “We are broadcasting to about 75 per cent of the country from Los Angeles, California, tonight,” he said in his monologue Thursday night.

    He noted next week’s shows will be taking place in Brooklyn, N.Y.

    “What we have to do now is stay on the move so the FCC can’t get us,” he joked.

    Curator Recommendations

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    Ari Rabinovitch

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  • Sinclair Backs Down, Will Resume Airing ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Local Stations

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    In a classic Friday news dump move, Sinclair announced that it will end its unofficial boycott of Jimmy Kimmel and will once again broadcast the comedian’s late-night show, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ to its ABC affiliate broadcast stations, ending its completely principled and not at all politically motivated stance to pre-empt the show after all of two days.

    “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the company said in a statement. “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”

    Sinclair—which operates 30 ABC affiliate stations in 27 markets, including cities like Portland, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—announced last week that it would choose to air “news programming” in place of Kimmel’s show, which returned to the air Tuesday after a brief hiatus. The program, which was briefly suspended by ABC after Kimmel made a frankly pretty innocuous comment about the political ideology of the person who allegedly shot and killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this month.

    Sinclair, along with fellow media conglomerate Nexstar, announced they would pull Kimmel’s show from the air following a statement from Federal Communications Commission head Brendan Carr, who warned broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and said, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

    Both companies currently have business in front of the FCC and are pretty motivated to show fealty to the Trump administration to ensure their deals get pushed through—not that they need that much motivation, considering both companies are owned by conservative-aligned media magnates. Sinclair CEO David Smith has been shifting its editorial coverage to the right for years, and Smith reportedly told Trump in 2016, “We are here to deliver your message.” Likewise, Nexstar chairman Perry Sook has repeatedly praised Trump and poured money into the coffers of GOP groups.

    Sinclair attempted to get in front of the obvious criticisms that it would face as a result of both its initial decision not to broadcast ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and its latest call to bring him back to the airwaves in Sinclair markets.

    “Our decision to preempt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” the company said. “Free speech provides broadcasters with the right to exercise judgment as to the content on their local stations. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.” It apparently took the company a solid week to remember that commitment to free speech, but it got there.

    The reality is that Sinclair was going to back down eventually, if only for legal reasons. As a broadcast executive explained to Deadline, local affiliates contractually can only preempt a program so many times before it breaks the contract and loses the ability to broadcast the show entirely. Sinclair’s “principled stance” was destined to last for exactly as long as it didn’t actually cost them anything and likely not a second longer.

    Once word started spreading that Disney might threaten to withhold live sports broadcasts from affiliates who pulled Kimmel, it was only a matter of time before Sinclair suddenly found its unwavering belief in “free speech” again. There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.

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    AJ Dellinger

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  • Sinclair says it’s bringing back “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” tonight, ending late-night show’s preemption

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    Sinclair on Friday said it is returning “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to its ABC stations, ending the preemption of the late-night show over over remarks host Jimmy Kimmel had made on the show in response to the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

    The show will air on its ABC affiliates tonight, Sinclair said in a Friday statement on social media.

    “Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the statement said.

    —This is breaking news and will be updated.

    Megan Cerullo

    Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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  • South Park Takes on Betting Markets, Trump, and the FCC

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    South Park returned with a new episode on Wednesday, focused on online betting, Israel’s war on Gaza, and President Donald Trump’s attempts to abort a baby that’s due after he impregnated Satan. But FCC Chairman Brendan Carr seemed to take the most abuse during the episode, something that was to be expected after Carr tried to get Jimmy Kimmel Live! removed from ABC. Spoilers ahead.

    South Park unexpectedly failed to deliver a new episode last week following the death of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk. And while creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said it was due to their own procrastination, there was speculation that it may have had something to do with Kirk’s death. South Park did an episode mocking Kirk’s style of debate on Aug. 6, a month before he was killed on Sept. 10, and that episode has been pulled from the rerun schedule.

    But the comedy show didn’t address Kirk at all on Wednesday, even if it touched on some of the downstream effects of his murder. The episode put Brendan Carr, this month’s great villain against free speech, through the ringer as he takes a tumble down some slippery stairs, explosively shits his pants, and is eventually hospitalized while making a Nazi salute.

    The episode opens with the boys learning about prediction markets like Polymarket and how to make bets online. One of the bets available is whether Kyle’s mom will strike Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital, something that enrages Kyle, who objects to the anti-semitism inherent in the idea and tries to contact someone to get the bet taken down. Kyle tries to complain to the betting company, run by Donald Trump Jr., before he’s directed to a series of different agencies, also overseen by Donald Trump Jr.

    Eventually, Kyle is told he needs to get in touch with the FCC, since the bet is “offensive” and the federal communications regulator apparently handles anything offensive these days. Meanwhile, Cartman realizes he can work all of Kyle’s outrage to his advantage, getting people to bet that Kyle’s mom will indeed order a strike on Gaza, while Cartman bets against it.

    Trump, who’s largely been the focus of Season 27’s short five-episode run thus far, works hard to get Satan to have a miscarriage, spiking soup with an absurd amount of Plan B. Satan doesn’t want the soup, but Carr dives in, getting diarrhea so explosive that he zooms around the room before crashing out the window into the sky.

    JD Vance returned as a character from the 1970s TV show Fantasy Island, seemingly sycophantic and trying to suggest gifts that President Trump can give to Satan’s child. Vance warns that one gift, a kitten, can be toxic for pregnant people, given that toxoplasmosis can cause miscarriages. This, of course, gives Trump the idea to outfit the White House attic with a bunch of cats and kitty litter, which can be released by a trap door onto Satan. Assuming Trump can get Satan to stand in the right place. Again, the FCC chair bears the brunt of Trump’s scheming, getting buried underneath the mountain of kitty litter and cat shit.

    Cartman panics when he learns that Kyle’s mom is heading to the Middle East, worried that she may actually hit Gaza and his bet will be ruined. But Kyle’s mom didn’t travel to Israel to enact violence, just give Benjamin Netanyahu a piece of her mind.

    Brendan Carr, battered and bruised, is visited by Vance in the hospital, where the vice president reveals himself to be more than just Trump’s lackey. Vance knows exactly what he’s doing by trying to get Satan to have a miscarriage. Because he knows that if Trump and Satan were to have a baby, it would be competition during Vance’s ascendancy to the presidency.

    Viewers never learn what happens to Carr, but it seems like a safe bet that he’ll return in future episodes. And that’s consistent with his current trajectory in real life. The FCC chairman successfully campaigned to get Jimmy Kimmel pulled from the airwaves, but that was short-lived. Kimmel returned on Tuesday, and the New York Times reports that he’s still going to exert maximum pressure to get liberal voices purged from the airwaves.

    President Trump, who also got Stephen Colbert cancelled, dropped the pretense Tuesday that the “controversy” around Kimmel had anything to do with Charlie Kirk’s death.

    “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

    “Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Trump continued.

    Then Trump made it clear that he’s never going to stop.

    “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution,” Trump wrote about Kimmel. “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

    On paper, South Park has been safe from cancellation, if only because Carr and the FCC only regulate the major broadcast stations, not cable. But Trump can apply pressure to private businesses in any number of ways. Disney is reportedly preparing for just that in the wake of Kimmel’s return.

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    Matt Novak

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  • Trump, Kimmel and the debate over freedom of speech in America

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    Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air after ABC pulled his show last week over comments about the death of Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s return comes amid an intense debate over the state of free speech in America. CBS News chief Washington analyst Robert Costa has more.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel’s ratings jumped to their highest in years with his return to ABC’s airwaves

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    The much-anticipated episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” following the comedian’s return from his suspension drew a broadcast audience about four times larger than average, according to Nielsen ratings data. This was despite the late-night show being preempted by about a quarter of all ABC affiliate TV stations in the U.S.

    Tuesday’s show drew an estimated 6.26 million total broadcast viewers, Disney said in a news release Wednesday, per numbers compiled by Nielsen, an audience measurement firm. The data does not include those who watched the episode on streaming platforms.

    For comparison, according to numbers provided to CBS News by a Disney spokesperson, Kimmel’s show averaged 1.42 million broadcast viewers during its 2024-25 season, less than a quarter of what it saw on Tuesday night.

    Tuesday’s broadcast also drew an 0.87 rating in the coveted demographic of adults ages 18 to 49, Disney said, the highest for a single episode of Kimmel’s show since March of 2015. The show averaged an 0.13 rating for that age group last season, Disney said.

    Kimmel’s monologue also drew more than 26 million views on YouTube and other social platforms, according to Disney which owns ABC. In it, he showed a video clip of President Trump criticising the show, saying it “had no ratings.”

    The host responded: “Well, I do tonight.”

    The late-night show was temporarily preempted last week following comments Kimmel made during a Sept. 15 monologue regarding the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

    “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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 at the time.

    In a Sept. 17 interview, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s remarks “some of the sickest conduct possible,” and said there was a “path forward for suspension over this.” Within hours of Carr’s comments, two major station owners, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced they were preempting Kimmel’s show indefinitely from their affiliates, while ABC also announced that it was “indefinitely” suspending the show.

    Nexstar has a deal pending to purchase fellow station operator Tegna for $6.2 billion, and needs the FCC’s approval for it to go through.  

    While ABC announced Monday that it had made the decision to bring Kimmel back to the airwaves, both Nexstar and Sinclair said this week that the show will continue to be preempted indefinitely.

    Nexstar said it is “continuing to evaluate the status” of the show. It operates 33 ABC affiliates, while Sinclair runs 38 ABC stations. According to Disney, the two media companies account for ABC stations in about 23% of the U.S. market, including in large cities such as Nashville and Seattle.

    In his monologue Tuesday, while he did not issue a blanket apology over his comments, Kimmel said that “it’s important to me as a human, and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it.”

    In a Sept. 17 Truth Social post following Kimmel’s suspension, Mr. Trump — who has railed against late-night hosts for years going back to his first administration, and has specifically criticized their ratings — wrote on Truth Social that “the “ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED.”

    Before the show aired Tuesday, Mr. Trump again took to social media to write that “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!”

    Aimee Picchi

    contributed to this report.

    Faris Tanyos

    Faris Tanyos is a news editor for CBSNews.com, where he writes and edits stories and tracks breaking news. He previously worked as a digital news producer at several local news stations up and down the West Coast.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Shatters His Late-Night Ratings Record in Fi…

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    Millions of viewers tuned in Tuesday night to watch Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night television after a week-long suspension, propelling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to its highest ratings in a decade. ABC said 6.26 million people watched as the comedian mixed sincerity and humor while addressing the controversy that sidelined him and thanking fans for their support.

    It was the most-watched regularly scheduled episode in the show’s history, far outpacing its typical nightly average of 1.42 million viewers. Kimmel’s monologue, in which he pushed back against critics and defended political satire, also racked up nearly 26 million views across YouTube and Instagram by Wednesday afternoon.

    Why It Matters

    Kimmel’s suspension and swift reinstatement put him at the center of a political storm over free expression, media independence and pressure from the Trump administration. His return quickly became a flashpoint for the broader debate about satire in American politics, with critics accusing the comedian of insensitivity and supporters saying he was unfairly targeted.

    The ratings surge underscores both the public appetite for late-night television when it intersects with politics and the fragility of the format in an era of cord-cutting and streaming. While traditional late-night shows have seen their audiences shrink in recent years, Kimmel’s return demonstrated that a high-profile controversy can still galvanize millions to tune in. The episode also highlighted tensions between broadcasters, regulators and politicians after federal officials hinted at possible fines for stations airing his program.

    What to Know

    Kimmel was suspended after remarks he made on Sept. 15 about the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk drew sharp criticism and political backlash. ABC parent company Disney reversed course six days later, bringing him back on air in what was widely viewed as an act of defiance against pressure from the Trump administration. The move also came amid a wave of subscription cancellations to Disney+ and Hulu by fans demanding his reinstatement.

    In his monologue, Kimmel addressed the controversy directly, telling viewers it was never his intent to make light of a young man’s murder. His voice broke as he defended satire against what he called “bullying” from the administration. He also poked fun at Disney’s business interests, jokingly reading scripted lines on how to reactivate Disney+ and Hulu accounts.

    Jimmy Kimmel’s 6.26 million viewers Tuesday night far exceeded the typical audience for any late-night show. In the second quarter of 2025, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert led the field with an average of about 2.42 million viewers, followed by Jimmy Kimmel Live! at 1.77 million and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon at 1.19 million. On cable, Fox News’ Gutfeld! — which has outpaced the broadcast shows in total viewership — draws roughly 2.2 million nightly viewers.

    Still, Kimmel’s return did not reach all audiences. Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which together own or operate 70 ABC stations covering nearly a quarter of U.S. households, refused to air the program. That left gaps in major markets including Seattle, Nashville, Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C. Both companies said they are evaluating the future of carrying the show, while noting that episodes remain widely available through streaming.

    The political fallout extended to Washington. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened investigations and possible license revocations for affiliates that aired the program, remarks that drew calls for his resignation from Democrats and skepticism from some Republicans. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, while not directly criticizing Carr or Trump, said government regulators should not pressure broadcasters, leaving programming decisions to networks and audiences.

    What People Are Saying

    Nexstar said Wednesday that it is evaluating the status of the show, which it will continue to pre-empt on its ABC-affiliated local television stations: “We are engaged in productive discussions with executives at The Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”

    Speaking directly about Erika Kirk, Kimmel said during Tuesday’s monologue that her ability to forgive the attacker is “an example we should follow.”: “If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it was. That’s it, a selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow, that touched me deeply. And I hope it touches many and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that and not this.”

    What Happens Next

    Kimmel’s future at ABC now depends as much on politics as on ratings. Disney executives are in discussions with station groups over the show’s distribution, while weighing how to balance creative independence with political and regulatory risks. For now, the network is standing by its star, pointing to the strong ratings and massive online engagement as evidence of his value to the brand.

    Meanwhile, Trump has continued to attack Kimmel on his Truth Social platform, calling him a partisan tool of Democrats and hinting at further action against ABC.

    Updates: 9/24/25, 7:29 p.m. ET: This article was updated with new information and remarks.

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  • How Did Trump and Others React to Jimmy Kimmel’s Return?

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    On Monday, Stephen Colbert announced that Kimmel would be returning to his show this week, telling his Late Show audience that, “our long national late-nightmare is over.

    Colbert said it was wonderful news for Kimmel and his “wonderful” staff, but joked about his own recent cancellation, saying he’s now “the only martyr in late night.”

    Similar to Colbert, Seth Meyers told his Late Night audience Monday night that he received word moments before taping that Kimmel would be returning. Meyers said that there’s been a “massive national backlash to Trump’s crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives.”

    Meyers, who Trump has also criticized, joked about his own future at NBC.

    “Donald Trump is publicly calling on his attorney general to prosecute his political enemies and said TV networks that criticise him should lose their broadcast license. But that’s not us, right? We’re good? What, we’re on a network? But I don’t even wear a suit. This is a network? I thought we only aired on those gas station TVs,” he said.

    On Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart mocked the idea that Kimmel’s suspension was anything but political.

    “It was rather shocking that this turnaround occurred, because I was told that the original decision to get rid of Jimmy had nothing to do with the Trump administration and their explicit FCC threat that they could remove the show the easy way or the hard way,” he said.

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    Nia Prater

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Rose to the Occasion in His Late-Night Return, Reminding Us Why We Have to Speak Out Against Tyranny

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    Jimmy Kimmel never thought he’d be here. But Kimmel has the skill to rise to this moment, at a jarring time in this country’s history as freedoms are under attack and democracy hangs on just by a thread.

    On Tuesday’s return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” we were reminded of that. Kimmel struck the perfect tone, acknowledging the gravity of what had just happened, telling his audience that both sides of the aisle should cherish and celebrate free speech — and then not pulling any punches in joking about what Donald Trump has been up to over the last few days. Political satire has been a late night staple since the dawn of the entire genre, and Kimmel was going to make sure it isn’t going anywhere.

    “You had the feeling that this was an important moment,” said one audience member who attended the Tuesday taping. “It felt very cathartic, like, not everything is lost.” It was a good reminder that part of the promise of America has being able to speak without fear of government intimidation.

    We all love Jimmy, but he never asked to be drafted to be the protector of the First Amendment and free speech in this nation. He’s a late night talk show host, not an activist. A comedian whose job is to simply poke fun at our nation’s elected leaders.

    “This show is not important, what is important is we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this,” Kimmel said.

    But these days, just pointing out our government’s foibles makes you an enemy of the state. Kimmel found that out last week, but he’s not the only one. President Trump is still celebrating the impending disappearance of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” And he promises that Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are next. Trump has the power of the FCC, the DOJ and other agencies ready to do his bidding — and last week, the administration came very close to getting what it wanted: The silence of one of the few prominent voices still poking fun at the madness coming out of Washington.

    Let that sink in for a second: Talk show hosts — comedians whose main job is to crack audiences up and help a rotating cast of guests promote their latest projects — are so embedded in the craw of Trump that he’s demanding his agencies find a way to shut them up.

    “I just want to say how alarming it is to feel like late night is important,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” writer Louis Virtel said this week on his podcast. “Nobody takes this job thinking, ‘and you know why I decided to make jokes about, whatever, Melania Trump today? To make a difference.” On the one hand, Trump loves to bash the hosts as being low-rated no-talents — yet “he’s the one who is constantly bringing up every day how important these people’s speech is.”

    Like many Angelenos, I’m old enough to remember when Kimmel was “Jimmy the Sports Guy” on KROQ’s “Kevin & Bean,” and waiting in line for the annual Christmas cassette that he helped produce. Trust me, “Jimmy the Sports Guy” wasn’t planning on becoming the national lightning rod for free speech — he started off his career by just wanting to be entertaining on the radio.

    But Kimmel’s tenacity and talent was always there, even when he was loitering at stations in Phoenix and Los Angeles, waiting for his big break. After he made his way onto “Kevin & Bean” — famously, the morning show hosts had no idea their program director had even hired him — he quickly found success as the sidekick on “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” as comic relief on “Fox Sports Sunday” and then as one-half of “The Man Show” with Adam Corolla.

    Still, it was a leap in 2002 when then-ABC Entertainment chairman Lloyd Braun somehow convinced Disney to hire Kimmel and launch an entirely new late night franchise. It was rough going at first, as the show struggled to book guests and wasn’t cleared in several major markets. But Kimmel grew into the role — and as social media came of age and video-sharing websites like YouTube launched, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was at the front of the pack creating viral moments and turning the show into must-share TV.

    Kimmel was always personal on air — his family and friends were part of the show from the beginning, including the late Uncle Frank, Aunt Chippy, Cousin Sal and best friend-turned-band leader Cleto Escobedo Jr. Over the years, that meant sharing the story of his son Billy’s heart condition — and why he believed everyone deserves proper health care. As the nation faced tragedies like school shootings, Kimmel was open and honest with how tragic the news was — and how frustrating that there seemed to be no attempts to enact sensible ways to stop gun violence.

    Often Kimmel would deliver those monologues with real tears in his eyes — which made him a further target of “f— your feelings” right wingers. That included Tuesday’s episode, where he noted how Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika “forgave the man who shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, that’s it a selfless act of grace forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply, and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward I hope it can be that.”

    But first and foremost, Kimmel is about the comedy. Always has been. The long-running gags like his “feud” with Matt Damon. The practical jokes such as the ones he pulls on family members and celebs like John Krasinski. And as much as Trump doesn’t like it, Kimmel is simply finding ways to still laugh through all the darkness gripping our country.

    When I last spoke to Kimmel in July, I shared optimistically that even as we see some of our rights stripped away, the one thing they hopefully can’t take away from us is our joy. And he pointed out that there were still plenty of things to have fun with even inside the Trump White House: “Today we learned that Trump’s nickname for Stephen Miller is ‘Weird Stephen,’” he told me that day. “Now, whether you like Trump or not, that’s a funny nickname to give a person. You must give credit where credit is due. So, a lot of horrible things are happening, but there are also some funny things happening. And I don’t know if it’s to keep us off balance or just how it goes with an inconsistent person, but I am able to find the humor in all this.”

    And not only is Kimmel still all about making us laugh, but he continues to share his reverence for the craft of comedy. That’s why he adores icons like David Letterman, Howard Stern and the late Norman Lear, all of whom he’s had the chance to honor on his show.

    On Tuesday, Kimmel posted a photo of himself with Lear (with whom he produced the series of specials “Live in Front of a Studio Audience”) along with the caption, “Missing this guy today.” Lear was a true hero — a WWII vet who fought fascism, then came home and built a career making America laugh while also tackling some of the most important issues of our time. Lear adored Kimmel, and he would have loved seeing the host back on his TV screen tonight.

    Jimmy Kimmel didn’t think he’d be here. But I’m glad he still is.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel, in first monologue since show was taken off air, says

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    Jimmy Kimmel returned to his long-running late-night show Tuesday, less than a week after network broadcaster ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” over remarks he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

    “It’s been overwhelming…I’ve heard from all the people in the world over the last six days,” Kimmel joked to open his monologue, going on to thank all those who came out in his defense, including conservatives. 

    “Most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” Kimmel said. “I never would have imagined that Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even my old pal Ted Cruz, who believe it or not said something very beautiful on my behalf. It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did and they deserve credit for it.”

    The Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, had announced Monday that Kimmel would return to the air. 

    It followed a political and media firestorm that began after the comedian addressed Kirk’s slaying in a Sept. 15 monologue, saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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.”

    An emotional Kimmel on Tuesday said that “it’s important to me as a human, and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” noting that he had taken to social media following Kirk’s killing to send his condolences to Kirk’s family. 

    Kimmel didn’t issue a blanket apology for his monologue remarks last week, but said he understood how it was offensive to some. 

    “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual,” Kimmel said of the suspected gunman. “That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some, that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did, point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.”

    Kimmel gave a brief explanation for what took place behind the scenes between himself and ABC’s brass.

    “I was not happy when they pulled me off the air on Wednesday,” Kimmel said. “I did not agree with that decision, and I told them that, and we had many conversations. I shared my point of view, they shared theirs. We talked it through, and at the end, even though they didn’t have to, they really didn’t have to, this is a giant company…they welcomed me back on the air.”

    On Tuesday night, before the show aired on the East Coast, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” 

    He went on, “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars,” Mr. Trump said in reference to his defamation lawsuit last year against ABC News over remarks made by anchor George Stephanopoulos, which the network settled in December by agreeing to contribute $15 million to Mr. Trump’s presidential foundation and museum, and another $1 million toward Mr. Trump’s legal fees.

    “This one sounds even more lucrative,” Mr. Trump wrote Tuesday. “A true bunch of losers!”

    Kimmel told his audience Tuesday that the president “made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”

    “One thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern, is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like, is anti-American,” he added. 

    In a Sept. 17 interview with right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s remarks “some of the sickest conduct possible,” and said there was a “path forward for suspension over this.”

    “The FCC is going to have remedies we could look at,” Carr told Johnson. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

    Within hours of that interview, station operator Nexstar announced it would preempt Kimmel’s show over the remarks. Nexstar owns and operates more than 200 stations nationwide, including more than two dozen ABC affiliates. Nexstar has a deal pending to purchase Tegna, a smaller rival, for $6.2 billion, and needs the Federal Communications Commission to approve it. 

    A Nexstar spokesperson told CBS News last week that the decision to preempt Kimmel’s show was “made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision.”

    ABC later said that it was “indefinitely” suspending the show. 

    Another major station owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, also said last week that it was pulling Kimmel’s show.

    Despite its return to ABC on Tuesday night, both Nexstar and Sinclair said they would continue to preempt Kimmel’s show.

    Sinclair on Monday night posted a statement on X saying it will preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” across its ABC affiliate stations and will be “replacing it with news programming” beginning Tuesday night. “Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” Sinclair said. 

    Nexstar on Tuesday said it will continue to preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “monitor the show as it returns to ABC.”

    Regarding Carr, Kimmel on Tuesday showed the audience a social media post that the FCC chair wrote in May 2022 in which he said, “Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people in to the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.”  

    Disney on Monday did not delve into the details of what led to its decision to allow Kimmel’s show to resume, only saying in a statement that the initial suspension was “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” calling his comments “ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

    “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” Disney said.

    The temporary removal of Kimmel’s show sparked a nationwide debate over issues of free speech and censorship. Many in the Hollywood community rallied to Kimmel’s side, with more than 400 celebrities — including actors Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep — signing an open letter with the American Civil Liberties Union that criticized the move as “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.”

    Conservatives upset with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk praised the decision, including President Trump, who congratulated ABC on his Truth Social platform “for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.” 

    Mr. Trump also speculated last week whether networks that cover him negatively should have their broadcast licenses revoked. 

    “They give me only bad publicity or press,” the president told reporters on Sept. 18. “I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr.”

    But one prominent conservative, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, was specifically critical of Carr’s comments to Johnson. 

    “I gotta say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas,’” Cruz said Friday on his podcast. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar, going, ‘nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’” 

    Kimmel’s show, which launched in 2003, tapes in front of a studio audience on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. The guests for Tuesday’s show included actor Glen Powell and singer Sarah McLachlan. 

    Joe Walsh,

    Aimee Picchi,

    Kathryn Watson and

    Mary Cunningham

    contributed to this report.

    Faris Tanyos

    Faris Tanyos is a news editor for CBSNews.com, where he writes and edits stories and tracks breaking news. He previously worked as a digital news producer at several local news stations up and down the West Coast.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel breaks down in tears in emotional return to air: ‘It was never my intention’

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    Jimmy Kimmel broke down in tears during an emotional return to air on Tuesday night after ABC suspended the TV host ‘indefinitely’ for comments made on the assasination of right wing activist Charlie Kirk. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he added, holding back the tears. He added that it was not “my intention to blame any specific group for the actions, what – it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual…That was really in the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.” Jimmy then went on to say taking his show off air was “not legal, not American, that is un-American.”

    He then asked: “Should the government be allowed to regulate which podcasts you download?” The 57-year-old  ended his monologue praising Erika Kirk for forgiving her husband’s killer: “She forgave him. That is an example we should follow,” he said.  “If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, that’s it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply, I hope it touches many. And if there’s anything we can take from this tragedy to carry forward, it can be that and not this,” he concluded. 

    © Getty Images
    Jimmy Kimmel returned to air Tuesday night

    His speech comes after Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on ABC. The president said he”can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back” in a post on Truth Social. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!,” Trump wrote. “Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”

    “Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution.”

    JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE - "Jimmy Kimmel Live" airs every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. EST and features a diverse lineup of guests that include celebrities, athletes, musical acts, comedians and human interest subjects, along with comedy bits and a house band. The guests for Wednesday, May 25 included presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump and musical guest Greg Porter. DONALD TRUMP, JIMMY KIMMEL© Getty Images
    Jimmy Kimmel Live once had Donald Trump as a guest

    Trump added: “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

    After Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended for nearly a week, on Monday, ABC and parent company Walt Disney released a statement confirming that he in fact will be back. “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.”

    JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" airs every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. ET and features a diverse lineup of guests that include celebrities, athletes, musical acts, comedians and human interest subjects, along with comedy bits and a house band. The guests for Monday, June 16 included Steve Martin ("5 Days Out, 2 Days Back"), Zach Cherry ("Severance"), and musical guest Steve Martin with Alison Brown & Tim O'Brien. JIMMY KIMMEL© Getty Images
    Jimmy is back!

    “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” it continued. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

    However, several ABC affiliate stations are blocking the telecast of the show tonight, including Nexstar, Sinclair and Tegna, which will impact millions of Americans nationwide. Their resulting statements have called for Jimmy to issue an apology to Charlie’s family. “We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve,” Nexstar’s statement added.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Doesn’t Spare Trump As He Returns to ABC

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    Eight days after he was unceremoniously yanked off the air, Jimmy Kimmel returned to ABC Tuesday night with a monologue that got right to the point. “I’m happy to be here tonight with all of you,” Kimmel began. “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours—me or the CEO of Tylenol.”

    Kimmel then thanked everyone who reached out to him in the week he was off the air, including fellow late night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Conan O’Brien, and former ABC host James Corden. He also made a point of thanking “the people who don’t support my show and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway”—folks like Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, and even Kimmel’s longtime antagonist Ted Cruz, all of whom publicly supported Kimmel’s right to free speech following his suspension.

    Last week, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live after comments Kimmel made about the MAGA movement’s response to the murder of Charlie Kirk raised the ire of the Trump administration. The decision came after FCC Chair Brendan Carr complained about Kimmel on a right-wing podcast and threatened to investigate ABC if it did not take action against the comedian. Following Carr’s comments, affiliates owned by the conglomerates Nexstar and Sinclair announced they would preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live—and in turn, ABC announced that the show had been pulled from the air “indefinitely.”

    Though Kimmel directly addressed Carr’s criticism—and poked fun at the federal employee’s total about-face regarding the importance of political satire—he also sounded a note of contrition about the comments that had led to his suspension in the first place. “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said, his voice breaking. “I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution, and it isn’t, ever.”

    At the end of his monologue, Kimmel also praised Erika Kirk for the comments she made at her husband’s livestreamed memorial on Sunday night. “I don’t know if you saw this—Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband,” he said. “That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That’s it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply.”

    On Monday, Disney announced that Kimmel’s show—which has aired on ABC since January 2003—would return to the air. In a statement, the nation’s largest media company said that it had suspended the show “to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” adding that it “spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.” Though Disney relented, viewers across the country who access ABC through affiliates owned by Many viewers access ABC through affiliate networks, and two of the largest affiliate operators, Sinclair and Nexstar, said they would preempt the show after Disney announced his return.

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    Erin Vanderhoof

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  • Jimmy Kimmel Speaks Directly About Erika Kirk in His Retu…

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    Late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel discussed Erika Kirk, widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, in his first show back on air Tuesday night after getting suspended.

    Why It Matters

    Kimmel’s return to ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! after a weeklong suspension marks a significant moment in the ongoing national discussion on free speech, political influence over media and the boundaries of televised commentary.

    The suspension came after Kimmel’s remarks after the assassination of Kirk, sparking a fierce public debate over censorship and political pressure on broadcasters. The controversy centered on Kimmel’s comments about MAGA and 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the killing.

    Kirk, 31, was a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and a face of the MAGA movement for younger generations. He utilized social media platforms to engage with younger people to discuss topics related to culture wars, foreign policy, religion and other conservative values.

    Additional media broadcasters like Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group pulled the plug on Kimmel’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as the companies own multiple ABC local affiliates across the country. Sinclair continued to preempt Kimmel’s show on Tuesday, saying in part that “Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.” Nexstar also continued to preempt the show.

    What To Know

    In his monologue, Kimmel addressed his previous remarks, saying he does not think that the suspect “represents anyone” and that the assailant is “a sick person who believed violence was a solution.”

    Speaking directly about Erika Kirk, Kimmel said that her ability to forgive the attacker is “an example we should follow.”

    “If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it was. That’s it, a selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow, that touched me deeply. And I hope it touches many and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that and not this,” Kimmel said.

    Kimmel thanked his fellow late-night talk-show hosts, both at home and abroad, who he said had shown solidarity with him. He also thanked his audience “who cared enough to do something about it, to make your voices heard so mine could be heard.”

    “Maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t support my show and what I believe but support my right to share those beliefs anyway,” he said, before citing a list of influential conservatives who spoke out in support of free speech.

    “It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration and they did and they deserve credit for it, and thanks,” he said.

    “It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,’’ adding that violence was never a solution.

    “Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make but I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both.”

    What People Are Saying

    Trump, on Truth Social Tuesday night: “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his “talent” was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

    Kimmel said: “This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

    What Happens Next

    Jimmy Kimmel Live! resumes regular programming but remains inaccessible in regions where affiliates controlled by Nexstar and Sinclair are still withholding it.

    Update 9/24/2025  1:50 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include more information.

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