This week, Bill Maher walked out in front of his live audience to a standing ovation, as the Real Time with Bill Maher host addressed ABC‘s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, comparing it to his own cancellation over two decades ago by the same network.
“I know why you’re happy tonight: I’m still on,” the late-night host said before beginning his monologue.
Maher continued, “Talk show hosts are going down like Blockbusters in the ’90s … Let me just tell you something, I am not intimidated by the FCC, and if President Trump is watching, I have one thing to say to you: Have you lost weight? You look terrific,” to audience cheers and laughs.
“No, that’s not me, and never will be,” Maher added, “but life is f—ing weird. It was 24 years to the day that I made comments on ABC that got me canceled from that network, and Jimmy Kimmel took my slot at Politically Incorrect. I got canceled before cancel even had a culture.” (In the aftermath of 9/11, Maher disagreed with the suggestion that the perpetrators were “cowards,” arguing instead that the U.S. was cowardly for “lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away.” The comments caused an uproar, leading to major sponsors pulling their ads and local affiliates yanking the program. Afterward, as Maher mentioned, Kimmel was brought in to fill ABC’s late-night role.)
Maher’s support for his colleague comes after multiple late-night hosts — from David Letterman to Seth Meyers to Jay Leno — decried ABC’s preemption of Jimmy Kimmel Live! as an infringement on free speech following host Jimmy Kimmel’s joke about Donald Trump‘s seeming lack of grief over the killing of ultra right-wing spokesman Charlie Kirk: “We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it,” he had said, in part.
ABC’s indefinite suspension of the program came after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened action over the joke — which poked fun at Trump being in the “construction” stage of grief for his segueing from a reporter’s question about how he is “holding up” into the remodeling being done on the White House ballroom — and following Nexstar, the largest TV station group in the country, pulling the show for the “foreseeable future.” The company later clarified it did so “unilaterally” sans FCC pressure. Meanwhile, Sinclair Broadcast Group, the second largest national station operator and largest owner of ABC affiliate stations, said it would not lift the suspension until Kimmel had apologized to Kirk’s family and made a “meaningful donation” to his conservative nonprofit organization Turning Point USA. As such, the company replaced its Kimmel slot with a tribute to Kirk.
Meanwhile, as Trump celebrated the news, implying that Meyers and Jimmy Fallon are next up for removal, Democratic leaders penned a joint statement over the matter, as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee vowed he would launch a formal investigation. In Hollywood, guilds have reacted with fervor, with writers and actors protesting at the Disney lot in Burbank, and top talent — from Damon Lindelof to She-Hulk star Tatiana Maslany — either announcing they will not work with Disney in the aftermath or calling for consumer boycotts of properties like Hulu and Disney+. Andor writer and recently minted Emmy winner Dan Gilroy penned a guest column in Deadline denouncing the “venomous evil” and governmental “siege.”
The move by ABC was also blasted by leading conservatives like Ted Cruz and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. In the latest development today, an ABC Sacramento affiliate, the site of a protest the day prior, was hit with gunfire; no one was injured.
“This sh– ain’t new; it’s worse, we’ll get to that, but ABC, they are steady,” Maher said. “ABC stands for Always Be Caving. So, Jimmy, pal, I am with you, I support you, and on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”
Maher continued in his monologue, calling the “intimidation on the right” “so hypocritical.” He made several jokes about corporate kowtowing, including how Good Morning America has changed its name to add the postscript “even the scum who didn’t vote for Trump” and that next year’s Golden Bachelor will be Rudy Giuliani. He added that even Wolf Blitzer would be reporting from “The Capitulation Room” (CNN’s program, with Blizter and Pamela Brown, is called The Situation Room).
During the show, Maher called out the hosts of The View for ignoring Kimmel’s sidelining for the second day in a row “you know, ’cause it’s never been their thing to weigh in on the issues … it’s just an upbeat party show — that’s why they hired people named Joy [Behar] and Sunny [Hostin] and Whoopi [Goldberg].” (Yesterday, Carr threatened regulatory scrutiny on the talk show, citing the FCC’s equal time rule as his reason for considering such action.)
Maher noted that he didn’t think what Kimmel said “was exactly right,” but maintained he “doesn’t deserve to lose his job over it.”
He added, “It is a fool’s errand to try to say that these nuts who do these things are any ‘team’ … This kid [alleged Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson] is in his basement with VR goggles on, getting virtually ass-f—ed by a cartoon wombat [via the game Furry Shades of Gay 3: Still Gayer], and you’re gonna put politics into this? This kid doesn’t belong in either party, he belongs in a straitjacket.”
Concluding, Maher addressed Kimmel directly: “Pal, you did a great, funny show for two decades; you should be proud of that. If this firing goes for you the way it did for me, you’ll get 23 years on a better network.”
