By The Herald’s View

Copyright smh

Watching the daily news coming out of an America reeling under the leadership of Donald Trump has all the elements of the proverbial slow-moving car crash: you know it will end badly, but somehow you can’t take your eyes away.

So it was with the latest bombshell announcement that Nexstar said it would stop running award-winning chat show host Jimmy Kimmel’s show on its 32 ABC affiliates, citing the comedian’s “offensive and insensitive” remarks about the assassinated hero of the Make America Great Again movement, Charlie Kirk.

In his opening monologue on Monday night, Kimmel, a long-term Trump critic, said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

He went on to tease Trump over his apparent “grief” over the appalling killing of Kirk, showing a bizarre doorstop interview where Trump is asked how he is coping with the death – and segues jarringly to a comment about the construction of a new ballroom for the White House.

Kimmel’s comments were somewhat questionable – but the sudden news of his cancellation sent shock waves across America.