By Mark Mwachiro
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On Wednesday night, two dueling interviews regarding the fate of ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel took place on Fox News and MSNBC at 9 p.m. ET.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity had a primetime interview with Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was interviewed on The Briefing with Jen Psaki.
Carr was on the Fox News program after news broke earlier in the evening that ABC would be removing its late night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, from its weeknight schedule for the foreseeable future.
Kimmel’s show was taken off the air after complaints by the FCC and local broadcast station groups Nexstar and Sinclair, following the late night host’s Monday night monologue in which he suggested that Charlie Kirk’s killer might have been a pro-Trump Republican amid uncertainty surrounding the incident.
Both Nexstar and Sinclair complained to ABC and preempted the broadcast from their respective evening lineups. ABC eventually benched Kimmel’s show “indefinitiely.”
Speaking to Hannity around 9:08 p.m. ET, Carr noted that broadcast networks and cable networks operate via different sets of rules. He said that the license broadcast networks receive comes with “a unique obligation to operate in the public interest. And over the years, the FCC walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation.”
Regarding Nexstar and Sinclair’s announcement that they would preempt Kimmel’s show, Carr told Hannity that he was “glad” about the positions they took, adding that they were “standing up to serve the interests of their community.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr weighs in after ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel off the airwaves “Broadcasters are different from any other form of communication, including here on cable right now. Fox News doesn’t have an FCC license, CNN doesn’t, but ABC, CBS, and NBC—those broadcast… pic.twitter.com/RjATnjPzEC — Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 (@seanhannity) September 18, 2025
Earlier in the day, Carr had also threatened to take action against ABC, saying in an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Meanwhile, on MSNBC, Pritzker’s interview started around 9:18 p.m. ET, sharing his thoughts with Psaki regarding Kimmel’s show being put on pause.
Calling the suspension and Carr’s threats “intimidation,” Pritzker went on to say that the Trump administration is using its power to “go after businesses to get them to do things that they need or want, right, either to pay them, as we have seen, or to fire people, as we have seen.”
Referencing the cancellation of The Late Show with Steven Colbert, Pritzker went on to say that people who are critical of the present government are seeing the administration use its power “to intimidate companies to fire people.”
Pressed by Psaki on what actions politicians and people who are uncomfortable with these turn of events can undertake, Pritzker spoke about the need for public action, emphasizing that people should speak out, “boycotting, showing up and protesting, and their representatives who agree with them doing the very same.”
Pritzker: “Everybody should be saying that ABC should reverse their decision.” — The Briefing with Jen Psaki (@briefingwithpsaki.bsky.social) September 17, 2025 at 9:34 PM
Meanwhile, CNN featured Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin from Maryland on The Source with Kaitlan Collins around the same time as the other two interviews. He spoke on Kimmel’s suspension, saying the move undertaken represents “a very dangerous moment for American constitutional democracy.”
