Just an hour before ABC made the announcement that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to the airwaves on Tuesday, a group of politicians and Hollywood guild leaders held a press conference and rally in front of the show’s Hollywood studio to urge Disney to bring the show back.
“Trump’s allies think the First Amendment comes with an asterisk,” said Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Calif. District 30). “They think that it means it gets free speech as long as Donald Trump likes it. But he does not get to silence dissent. He does not get to tell the American people what to say or what they can and cannot listen to… This is not just about a late night show. It’s about jobs and it’s about our rights as Americans. How the FCC’s job is to protect Americans, not the President’s ego. And I would remind every corporation in America and that many of their business models cannot survive in a world where the government gets to tell them what to say.”
Friedman pulled out a large copy of the First Amendment while adding, “You do not get to cancel the United States Constitution, not today, not tomorrow, not on our watch.”
The press conference did not go off without a hitch; a Trump supporter with a microphone loudspeaker attempted to drown out the event; that’s when attendees shouted back “Free speech!” Later, a low flying Fox 11/KTTV helicopter, which was getting video of the event, also drowned out some of the speakers.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif. District 32) attempted to point out that the far-right Charlie Kirk has now been lauded as a free speech absolutist — which is why, in his mind, muzzling Kimmel was hypocritical.
“This mafia administration is so bold that they do the language of the mafia in plain sight,” he said. “What this administration is doing, what Brendan Carr is to undermine the words of Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk said you should be allowed to say outrageous things. There is rogue speech, there is evil speech, and it is all protected by the First Amendment. Jimmy Kimmel did not contradict the words of Charlie Kirk. Donald Trump did. His FCC.”
Sherman than said that he personally, as a citizen, planned to boycott and businesses that advertised on ABC at 11:35 p.m. if Kimmel was not brought back. He also said if Kimmel returned, he would support those advertisers — which is presumably what he will now do.
“The First Amendment deals with what we do as a government, and the government should be concerned, but we are also private citizens,” he said. “And I, for one, will be looking at who’s advertising on ABC from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. And speaking just for my own family, if we see Jimmy Kimmel, we’re going to watch those advertisers. And if we see alternative programming, we will be boycotting those who buy the time.”
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif. District 32), co-chairs the Congressional Creative Rights Caucus, warned that President Trump has been demanding Kimmel’s scalp for some time. “First, Trump wrote, more than two months ago that Jimmy Kimmel’s show should be canceled. Then last week, Trump’s FCC chair said that companies should take action on Kimmel, even saying that they can ‘either do it the easy way or the hard way.’ And the companies got the message.”
She then criticized Nexstar: “ABC’s largest distributor, which needs the FCC’s approval for a $6.2 billion merger, immediately followed his orders and preempted the show, and ABC took it off the air indefinitely. So this was not about comments that a comedian made about Charlie Kirk. This is about a president leveraging the power of the federal government to silence his critics, a plan he’s been open about four months. Now he’s saying that the FCC should go further and cancel the broadcasting licenses of networks that criticize him. Well, are we going to be bullied like that? Are we going to be silenced? Every single one of us has a responsibility to stand up for our constitutional rights that are under attack. And this doesn’t just fall on the shoulders of workers. We need corporations and their executives to start standing up to this coercion.”
Rep. Ted Lieu added that this is not just about Kimmel. “Last year, the Supreme Court ruled a unanimous decision that government officials cannot force third parties to punish or suppress the views that government officials is fake, and my message to ABC is very simple: You do not kneel,” he said. “What happens when you kneel? The bully comes after you again, and now the FCC chair Brendan Carr is threatening ABC because he doesn’t like the statements made by ‘The View.’ When is this going to stop? ABC, you have a choice. You can continue to be bowing or you can stand up for yourself, stand up for the First Amendment and invoke the protection of the First Amendment, an amendment that generations of Americans have given their blood, sweat and tears to defend. We will not kneel. We will continue to be true.”
And to prove his point, Lieu said: “I get to say things like Donald Trump is partly on Epstein files because he is all over the Epstein files.”
Other speakers at the event included Writers Guild of America-West president Meredith Stiehm, in addition to members of SAG-AFTRA, Teamsters, IATSE and other unions.