Donald Trump “lost this round” — that is Ari Melber’s assessment after Jimmy Kimmel’s record-breaking return to ABC. On Wednesday’s “The Beat,” Melber called the episode a “ratings bonanza,” noting 6 million viewers tuned in to watch Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” On social media, the comedian’s opening monologue had racked up more than 26 million views as of Thursday morning.
Melber said the ratings show the Trump administration’s attempt to squash criticism from the late-night host backfired — in spectacular fashion. “When you try to suppress something, you sometimes draw more attention to it,” he said.
“The Beat” host referenced a popular nickname for this phenomenon: the Streisand Effect. The term was coined in 2005, after Barbra Streisand tried to suppress a single picture of her home in California. As Melber recounted, her effort “ended up backfiring and drawing far more interest.”
However, while Melber acknowledged that Trump’s censorship attempt may have misfired this time, he also cautioned that a phenomenon like the Streisand Effect is only possible when the information being suppressed is still accessible.
“So it is a fact that there’s more interest in Kimmel’s monologue, but — yes, ‘but’ I’m sorry there’s always a ‘but’ these days — that still will only matter in reality if there is the freedom to find the material and get it,” he explained. “The Streisand Effect does not work in North Korea or places with legal, practical, tech limits on what you might find on your TV or on their version of what they call the internet, which is censored.”
Melber highlighted how many local affiliates run by Nexstar and Sinclair are still refusing to air Kimmel’s show, seemingly going along with “the MAGA government crackdown” and bringing America one step closer to the practices of autocracies like North Korea.
“There’s an old saying in politics, that it’s a thin line between the impossible and the inevitable, meaning sometimes something that you don’t think could ever happen, happens,” Melber continued, noting that right now, America has “a leader who openly tries to abuse government power to sacrifice or end the very first amendment of our Constitution” and “the basis for all the rest of our civic dialog and democracy.”
So while many Americans may believe the U.S. going the way of North Korea and other autocracies is impossible, Melber says, “that’s where we are.” And according to him, the only way to prevent a further crackdown is for the American people to stand up and band together to fight censorship. “The rest is up to us,” Melber said.
You can watch Melber’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.