ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air indefinitely on Wednesday amid controversy over comments he made on his show Monday night aboutCharlie Kirk’s killing.
Kirk, 31, co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and a close ally of President Trump, was gunned down on a university campus in Utah on Sept. 10.
Prosecutors charged Tyler Robinson, a 22-year old from Utah who is accused of killing Kirk, with aggravated murder on Tuesday.
“The MAGA Gang [is] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during the show. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
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Kimmel went on to mock Trump’s response to a reporter who asked how he was “holding up” after the assassination of Kirk, whom Trump has called a friend.
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Trump answered that he was “very good” before pivoting to talk about a new ballroom that’s being built at the White House.
After playing the footage of Trump’s response, Kimmel said: “He’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction. Demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend — this is how a 4-year old mourns a goldfish.”
ABC’s decision to suspend the show comes after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to “take action” against Disney and ABC over Kimmel’s comments.
Free speech groups and Democrats condemned the suspension, while Trump lauded the move on Truth Social on Wednesday.
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“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “That leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”
Watch Kimmel’s monologue from Sept. 15:
Alyssa Vega can be reached at alyssa.vega@globe.com.
