Disney-owned ABC announced Wednesday that it is indefinitely suspending its late night show, Jimmy Kimmel’s show, three days after he commented on the murder of Trump-supporting youth leader Charlie Kirk. Specifically, the identity of the alleged killer, a 22-year-old named Tyler Robinson, was revealed last Friday. He came from a Mormon, Republican, gun-loving, and hunting family, and was a supporter of President Donald Trump.
“We hit rock bottom over the weekend with the MAGA [Make America Great Again] gang trying to characterize this guy who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and making political capital out of it,” Kimmel said in his commentary on the controversy. ABC’s announcement comes after conservative network Fox News has since repeatedly replayed video footage of Kimmel’s monologue to frame it in the context of those who, as socially irrelevant citizens, have excused or celebrated Kirk’s death.
But especially after Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, harshly criticized Kimmel's comments on a podcast Wednesday morning. Carr called for the comedian's dismissal, adding,"We can do it by fair means or foul." Furthermore, Nexstar, which owns nearly 70% of local radio stations in the United States, announced shortly before ABC's announcement that it would stop airing the show."Nexstar strongly opposes Kimmel's recent comments regarding the murder of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets," the company stated. Just minutes later, ABC canceled the show.
Following the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late-night show on CBS in mid-July, another of its time zone neighbors is also being dropped. Colbert's departure, which has been inconvenient for Trumpism, is due to financial reasons, according to the network, but will be delayed until spring 2026. In Kimmel's case, it is unknown if the suspension is immediate. This Wednesday, the show featured actress and writer Wanda Sykes, as well as former monk and science communicator Jay Shetty.
The 57-year-old New York host has been hosting ABC's late-night slot for more than 20 years. He debuted in January 2003, and at the time was competing with half a dozen other prestigious television hosts. His show, which is filmed in the heart of Hollywood, right on the Walk of Fame (around 3 p.m., so it's broadcast on a delayed basis), has hosted every star imaginable; this September, actors such as Rob Lowe, Bryan Cranston, Mark Hamill, Regina King, and Sean Penn have appeared on the set. In January 2007, he interviewed Donald Trump, then a popular television host."What a handsome idiot he was," he said of himself a few months ago, recalling the interview. For his part, Trump praised his strong ratings:"You're doing well."
But Kimmel has been uncomfortable with Trumpism for years, as has ABC, and the free media in general. Before summer, the network paid the US president a $15 million settlement—money that will go to the foundation that will build his presidential library—to avoid going to court following a lawsuit filed by Trump against the network and one of its star hosts, George Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos was discussing the sexual assault and defamation case in which Trump was ordered to pay $5 million to author E. Jean Carroll when she alleged he raped the former Elle magazine columnist. The jury in the case found the then-former president guilty of sexual assault, not rape.
On Tuesday, Trump responded to a question from one of ABC News' most famous journalists, Jonathan Karl, author of a pair of books about the president. Karl asked if he supported the idea championed by Attorney General Pam Bondi hours earlier—and in light of the murder of Charlie Kirk and those who have celebrated or excused it on social media—that the administration should pursue the idea that “hate speech” is not protected by freedom of expression, a sacrosanct right in the American system, where Nazi and Ku Klux Klan rallies are permitted. Trump told Karl: “Maybe we should go after you, because you’re always saying such bad things about me.”
In addition, Trump has also obtained $16 million from CBS, also intended for the future library. Last fall, the President of the United States filed a lawsuit against the news program 60 Minutes, accusing it of editing an interview with Kamala Harris, his opponent, whom the then-candidate claimed the program had benefited in the final stages of the campaign. He was asking for no less than $20 billion, also taking advantage of a sensitive issue: that Paramount, the parent company of CBS, needed federal approval to merge with the audiovisual group Skydance. Paramount, with debts of $400 million, claims that the reason for Colbert's dismissal is, in fact, financial, due to its low ratings (3.4 million and falling) after a decade on the air.
For his part, Kimmel has been clearly anti-President Trump in recent years. So much so that he even obtained Italian citizenship, as he announced just a month ago. “What's happening is as bad as you imagined. It's much worse, it's just unbelievable. I feel like it's probably even worse than he would have hoped,” the host, born and raised in New York, commented on a podcast. Kimmel obtained the passport thanks to the fact that his grandmother was Italian, born in Ischia, across from Naples.
When news broke in July that Colbert—who won his first Emmy Award for his show last Sunday—would be axed by CBS, President Trump was delighted, dropping hints that he wanted both Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel to be next. “I’m really happy that they’re firing him,” he said. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I think Jimmy Kimmel is next. He’s even less talented than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld [of Fox News] is better than all three of them combined, and that includes the moron at NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” he said, referring to Fallon.
