By Reuters | Images Staff
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Late-night show hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and David Letterman have all rallied behind Jimmy Kimmel following ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend his popular late-night show after his comments about the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel has been embroiled in the effort by US President Donald Trump and his supporters to punish critics of assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot while speaking at a Utah university on September 10. Since then, allies of Trump and Kirk have warned Americans to properly mourn the divisive figure or face consequences.
The Walt Disney-owned broadcaster ABC said Wednesday it was yanking the late-night comedy show Jimmy Kimmel Live indefinitely following conservative uproar over his Monday monologue. Writers, performers, and former US President Barack Obama and others condemned Kimmel’s suspension, calling it capitulation to unconstitutional government pressure.
Late-night comedy hosts react with mockery
Stewart returned to The Daily Show with a “government-approved” programme and referred to Trump as “Our Great Father” and “Dear Leader.” He joked about Trump’s recent visit to the UK and played a clip of a reporter’s question about Kimmel and whether free speech was under attack in America.
“How dare you, sir! How dare you, sir!” Stewart bellowed. “What outfit are you with, sir, the Antifa-Herald Tribune?” When the audience booed or expressed dismay, Stewart, in a panic, tried to shush them. A group of correspondents delivered a message in unison and showered the president with over-the-top praise as though they lived in a dictatorship.
Referring to Trump’s comment overnight that “Kimmel is not a talented person”, Stewart joked that Trump had a “Talent-O-Meter” to measure when a performer’s “niceness to the president goes below a certain level.”
Stephen Colbert, whose Late Night show on CBS is ending entirely in a move that critics alleged was motivated by concerns about the Trump administration, said he stands with Kimmel and his staff.
“That is blatant censorship, and it always starts small,” Colbert said, and he referred to the administration’s effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico. “And if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.”
The NBC late-night host Seth Meyers made light of fears that he might be next in line to be canceled, starting his show on Thursday by pausing to say that as “[Trump’s] administration is pursuing a crack down on free speech … completely unrelated, I just want to say before we get started here that I’ve always admired and respected Mr Trump.“
As his audience laughed, Meyers continued, “I’ve always believed he was — no, no, no — a visionary, an innovator, a great president, an even better golfer. And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”
In his opening monologue, Jimmy Fallon, on Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show, joked, “I woke up to 100 messages from my dad saying, ‘sorry they cancelled your show’.”
He then became serious for a moment and said, “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on. And no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
Veteran TV host David Letterman also condemned ABC’s decision while speaking at a festival for the Atlantic magazine. “I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going. It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous. And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”
Trump applauds Kimmel’s suspension
Trump on Thursday celebrated the suspension of Kimmel from the airwaves and said TV broadcasters should lose their licenses over negative coverage of his administration, adding fuel to a national debate over free speech.
“Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk,” Trump said during a news conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“Kimmel is not a talented person,” he added. “He had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago. So, you know, you can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent.”
How it all started
Kimmel, a comedian who frequently lampoons Trump, said during his opening monologue on Monday that allies of Kirk were using his assassination to “score political points.” He also poked fun at Trump after the president turned a question about his personal mourning of Kirk into a promotion for his White House ballroom.
“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,” Kimmel said.
A 22-year-old technical college student from Utah was charged with Kirk’s murder on Tuesday.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his office and the courts to attack unflattering speech about him that he has called defamatory or false.
Throughout both his terms, Trump has threatened to rescind licenses for local broadcast affiliates of the national networks — licenses that are approved by the Federal Communications Commission, a nominally independent regulatory body.
Kimmel’s suspension came after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to investigate Kimmel’s commentary about Kirk, and owners of local TV stations had said they would stop broadcasting his celebrity-filled late-night show.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump complained about receiving bad publicity from broadcasters, saying, “That’s something that should be talked about for licensing. … All they do is hit Trump.”
“I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” Trump said. “It will be up to Brendan Carr.” Federal law prohibits the FCC from revoking a broadcaster’s license for negative coverage or other speech the government dislikes.
What speech is protected?
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech and other rights against government interference. Courts have said that protection includes rights against the government pressuring third parties to engage in censorship.
In a key ruling, the US Supreme Court in 1963 said the government cannot create a “system of informal censorship” by pressuring private actors.
That case involved a Rhode Island agency that had threatened prosecution against book and magazine distributors who did not stop selling specific publications it had deemed objectionable.
The Supreme Court last year said that in such cases, plaintiffs must show that the government went beyond permissible attempts to persuade and that its conduct caused them direct harm.
The court in that case refused to impose limits on President Joe Biden’s administration, encouraging social media platforms to remove posts deemed to contain misinformation, including about elections and COVID.
Aren’t officials free to criticise Kimmel?
Yes. Trump often disparages comedians and entertainers who speak out about his policies, which is permissible. However, government authorities cannot use their authority to suppress speech.
Can Kimmel sue?
Kimmel could sue the FCC for free speech violations, but winning would likely be an uphill battle.
The First Amendment only applies to actions by the government, and Kimmel would have to show that Carr and the FCC coerced ABC into pulling him off the air. That would be a very high bar if ABC denies that it acted in response to Carr’s comments.
Kimmel could also potentially sue ABC for breaching his contract or for employment law violations. His ability to bring those claims in court could be limited if he signed an agreement, common in many industries, including entertainment, to keep legal disputes in private arbitration.
Isn’t ABC free to cancel shows?
It is. ABC has its own speech rights and cannot be forced to broadcast a show its executives decide would hurt the company.
Kimmel would have to show a link between Carr’s comments and ABC executives deciding to suspend his show. Kimmel’s case would be undermined if ABC executives were suspending his show because of Nexstar’s move.
Even if Kimmel sued and won, ABC’s free speech rights would likely prevent a court from reinstating his show, and it is unclear what remedies he could recover from the FCC.
