Chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, continues to defend the decision to take ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ off the air. Disney’s ABC announced Wednesday night that the show will be pre-empted indefinitely, after Kimmel’s monologue earlier this week, which linked political activist Charlie Kirk’s accused assassin, Tyler Robinson, to President Trump’s Make America Great Again’ movement.
We hit some new lows over the weekend when the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said during his opening monologue Monday.
The decision to take the show off the air came just hours after Carr threatened to take action against Disney & ABC for those comments.
Fox News doesn’t have an FCC license. CNN doesn’t. ABC, CBS, NBC, those broadcast stations do and with that license, comes a unique obligation to operate in the public interest,” Carr told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Wednesday.
Carr also appeared on CNBC on Thursday, saying Kimmel appeared to mislead the American public about the facts surrounding Robinson.
He also hinted that more moves could be coming.
We’re in the midst of a very disruptive moment right now and I just frankly expect that we’re going to continue to see changes in the media ecosystem,” Carr said.
But Kimmel’s suspension is generating split opinions. President Donald Trump applauded the move while in the UK on Thursday.
Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person and he had very bad ratings and they should have fired him a very long time ago,” Trump told reporters.
Meanwhile, multiple Democratic lawmakers claim the move is government censorship of the media and a violation of free speech.
Anybody that is criticizing this administration, they’re using the power of government to intimidate companies into firing people,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told MSNBC Wednesday.
Former President Barack Obama also weighed in on ‘X.’ Writing, “after years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
Sinclair, which operates ABC stations in 27 U.S. markets, released a statement calling Kimmel’s suspension not enough. It also urged the FCC and ABC to take additional action.
Kimmel has not yet spoken out about the suspension.
