By Joe Sommerlad

Copyright independent

Comedian John Oliver and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz found themselves in rare agreement over the weekend as both men attacked America’s media giants for caving in to a “Goodfellas-style” pressure campaign from Donald Trump’s administration over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off air “indefinitely” last week after the host criticized the MAGA movement’s response to the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk by saying its members were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”

Trump himself gloated over Kimmel’s removal, but the star’s fellow chat show hosts, as well as politicians, free speech advocates, and other celebrities, have leapt to his defense.

On Sunday, Oliver used his own HBO show, Last Week Tonight, to accuse Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr of pressuring ABC into acting against a long-time critic of the president.

“The sequence of events here could not be clearer, because it was all done in plain view. Carr leaned on broadcasters to take down Kimmel,” Oliver said.

“They did that, sometimes even directly citing Carr while doing so, and then Carr celebrated with a fun GIF. That sure seems like a pretty clear case of the government pressuring companies to censor speech. And it’s not like Trump is even trying to hide it.”

Likening Carr’s actions to those of a gangster from Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mafia epic, the comic continued by quoting him directly: “‘We could do this the easy way or the hard way.’ As threats go, that is pretty clear. It’s like if someone threw a brick through your window with a message that said, ‘Shut up or else,’ then followed it up with more clarifying bricks saying, ‘By or else, we mean we will hurt you physically,’ then, ‘This is the mafia by the way,’ followed by, ‘You know, like in Goodfellas.’”

Oliver subsequently turned his fury on Bob Iger, CEO of ABC’s parent company Disney. He said: “History is also going to remember the cowards who definitely knew better but still let things happen, whether it was for money, convenience, or just comfort. I know this is something of a tough sell, and it can be a bit of anathema to risk-averse business leaders.

“But I will say this. If we’ve learnt nothing else from this administration’s second term so far – and I don’t think we have – it’s that giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time. They are never going to stop.”

On Friday, Cruz also addressed the scandal on the latest episode of his podcast and likewise likened Carr’s words to those of a movie mobster.

“He says, ‘We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’” the senator commented. “That’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right, out of a mafioso coming into a bar, going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”

Playing audio of the FCC chair’s comments, Cruz commented: “What he said there is dangerous as hell… I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off the air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

He went on to warn that a future Democratic president could retaliate in kind against their own media critics: “They will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly. It might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.”

Along with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Cruz is one of the highest-profile Republicans to have spoken out on Kimmel’s behalf so far and was attacked for doing so after he reposted praise for his stance from British comedy legend John Cleese on X.

“I had believed Ted Cruz would be an ideal SCOTUS Justice. I’m not so sure now,” one commentator griped in the replies.

“You stabbed us all in [the] back. It’s weak and ineffective,” a second person told the senator.

Perhaps most damningly of all, another commenter called Cruz a “Common Sense Millennial” and told him, “Man, you suck.”