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Michael Eisner, an ex-CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, on Thursday condemned the controversial decision of the network’s leadership to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air “indefinitely” following threats by the Trump administration, asking: “Where has all the leadership gone?”
Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission and an ally of President Donald Trump, had warned ABC’s leaders there would be consequences for the network and its affiliates if they didn’t take action to discipline the late night host over some comments he made on his show Monday, criticizing conservatives’ response to right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
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“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on a right-wing podcast two days later.
Eisner expressed frustration at the reluctance of corporate leaders and others in powerful positions across the board to defy the Trump administration and stand in support of free speech, seemingly taking a jab at his successor in the Disney CEO position, Bob Iger.
“Where has all the leadership gone? If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the First Amendment?” he asked in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Eisner added that the timing of Kimmel’s suspension shortly after Carr threatened ABC is “yet another example of out-of-control intimidation.”
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“Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest,’” Eisner wrote before concluding, “By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”
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Kimmel had originally planned to address the criticism of his earlier remarks in Wednesday’s edition of his show by saying that his words were being intentionally misconstrued by some people in the MAGA universe, according to The Wall Street Journal. But corporate leaders feared that his monologue would create more problems, prompting the decision by Iger and Dana Walden, the co-chair of Disney Entertainment, to preempt the show, the Journal said.
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Kimmel was reportedly scheduled to meet with ABC leaders on Thursday to discuss the future of his program, according to Bloomberg. It’s unclear how those reported discussions went.