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President Donald Trump unleashed yet another tirade on his social media platform earlier this week, threatening legal action against ABC after the network put Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show back on the air after suspending the program days prior.
On Tuesday, an hour before Kimmel’s show aired live on most ABC stations, Trump slammed the network on Truth Social, saying, “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!”
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He later claimed in his post that the host is “another arm of the DNC,” before he lobbed a legal threat at ABC.
“To the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” he wrote, before he referenced ABC’s agreement in 2024 to settle a defamation case brought by Trump. “Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.”
ABC had suspended Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” after the host commented on the way many conservatives had immediately responded to Charlie Kirk’s killing, arguing that they were trying to “score political points.” Many prominent conservatives had rushed to blame Democrats for the fatal shooting of the right-wing influencer — even while authorities were still searching for a suspect.
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Kimmel’s monologue last week drew the ire of many MAGA supporters and conservatives. Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr described the host’s remarks about the response to Kirk’s killing as “the sickest conduct possible” during his appearance on a podcast hosted by right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” he said at the time. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Shortly after, ABC announced it was pulling Kimmel’s show. Sinclair and Nexstar, two companies that own ABC affiliate stations across the United States, also announced on the same day that they would not be airing the show on their stations.
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Disney’s announcement on Monday that it was bringing back Kimmel’s show followed widespread outrage over the suspension and concerns about an attack on free speech.
But Kimmel’s highly anticipated return on Tuesday night wasn’t available on all ABC affiliate stations across the U.S. because of the decision of Sinclair and Nexstar, which collectively control about one-quarter of ABC affiliates, not to air Kimmel’s show. It’s unclear how long the companies will continue to preempt the late night program.
Heidi Kitrosser, professor of law at Northwestern University, told HuffPost of her concerns about Trump’s recent threat to take legal action against ABC.
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“It is absolutely essential in a free society for the people to retain the right to criticize powerful persons and entities, particularly those who govern them,” she said. “So it is extraordinarily troubling when the president of the United States threatens a broadcast network because he doesn’t like what their talent has to say about himself or his allies.”
Trump is ‘not a king’ — and he shouldn’t threaten to use government power to retaliate against protected speech.
Kitrosser, whose expertise includes free speech law, said she believes that when ABC settled Trump’s lawsuit in 2024, the broadcast network had “wrongly acceded to a mobster-like shakedown.” (Trump had sued ABC and George Stephanopoulos after the anchor said during a segment on-air that Trump was found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. He was found liable in 2023 of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. A jury ordered him to pay her $5 million.)
“ABC was wrong to settle then because they had an outstanding First Amendment defense against Trump’s lawsuit and by caving, they incentivized him to keep coming back for more and, worse still, to keep trying to shape news coverage through intimidation,” Kitrosser said Wednesday. “His ‘even more lucrative’ statement bears out that prediction.”
Bryan Adamson, professor and First Amendment scholar at Case Western Reserve University, said that as it relates to Trump’s criticism that Kimmel is back on the air, it’s important to remember that satire and political conversation is “absolutely constitutionally protected.”
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He explained that for Trump to claim that Kimmel is an “arm of the DNC,” and that his presence is an “illegal campaign contribution,” he’d have to demonstrate some “direct transactional relationship that’s apparent” and able to be proven between Kimmel and the Democratic National Convention.
Adamson also pointed to the Federal Election Commission’s regulations and media exemptions, which allow “broadcasters of news information and content to freely comment on political news of the day — that includes entertainment content,” he said.
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“ABC falls in the media exception and cannot remotely be construed as an arm of [the] DNC,” he said. “There’s no legal basis for Trump’s suggestion.”
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Overall, Kitrosser emphasized that a president should “never threaten to use government power to retaliate against a company for engaging in speech that is constitutionally protected but that the president simply doesn’t like.”