US TV network ABC has pulled late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air “indefinitely” over recent comments by the host about Charlie Kirk’s death in a recent episode.
Kimmel had insinuated that Kirk’s alleged assassin was a member of the “MAGA gang” while mocking US President Donald Trump’s response to his death during his opening monologue in Monday night’s episode of his talk show.
The Jimmy Kimmel Live host claimed during the monologue that right-wing pundits were hitting “new lows” in trying to suggest the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, wasn’t “MAGA.”
“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 and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.
He then mocked President Trump’s response to the deadly shooting, slamming the White House for flying flags at half-mast and calling out Trump for discussing the construction of a new White House ballroom when asked about Kirk in an interview days after the killing.
“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?” Kimmel said.
Today, Nexstar Media Group, which has more than 200 partner stations across the US, announced that it would pull Kimmel’s show indefinitely in light of the remarks, The Wrap reports.
In doing so, the President of Nexstar labelled Kimmel’s jokes “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”
“We do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said in a statement.
“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to pre-empt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”
Kimmel had previously shared his thoughts on the “senseless” assassination and sent his “love” to Kirk’s family in a social media post.
“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” he wrote.
“On behalf of my family, we send love to the kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
Kimmel’s on-air jokes came a day after FBI officials and Utah’s governor said the suspect had “leftist ideology” and had been radicalised in recent years.
“It’s fairly obvious this was an ideologically motivated attack,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Fox News on Monday.
Meanwhile, a top official has revealed that Kirk’s shooting suspect is not co-operating with investigators.
Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah local, is being held without bail in a Utah jail on several charges including aggravated murder, according to officials.
In a series of interviews on Sunday morning talk shows, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that Robinson’s romantic partner, as well as his family are all co-operating with the FBI investigation into Mr Kirk’s killing.
“It’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology,” Mr Cox told the Wall Street Journal in an article published on Saturday.
It emerged this week that Robinson had been living with his unidentified transgender partner at a home in Utah, with texts the pair sent to each other after the shooting were publicly aired this week.
Robinson is set to face charges of aggravated murder and is being monitored around the clock by officials in Utah County Jail.
Star sobs over Kirk’s death
While Kimmel may just have lost his job over his reaction to Kirk’s death, another Hollywood star was overcome with emotion while discussing the killing of American right-wing activist Charlie Kirk during a recent interview.
Jamie Lee Curtis sobbed as she discussed Kirk’s death during an appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast that was published this week.
“I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say, but I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected with his faith. Even though his ideas were abhorrent to me, I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith. And I hope whatever connection to God means that he felt it,” she said.
Curtis said she did not “ever” want to see footage of Kirk’s death, and argued that “we don’t know enough psychologically” about what it does to view such violent material.
“We are inured to them and we are numb to them, but they are in there. We don’t know enough psychologically about what that does. What does that do? Is that the case why we’re all feeling this lack of humanity – because we are just saturated with these images?”
Many celebrities have voiced their reactions to Kirk’s death – some more controversially than others. Horror author Stephen King copped a fierce backlash after claiming on social media that Kirk had “advocated stoning gays to death.”
The response was swift, as Kirk’s supporters said he had welcomed gay people in the conservative movement.
“You are a horrible, evil, twisted liar. No, he did not,” US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on X in response to the post, branding King “dishonest and full of hate.”
