The return of Jimmy Kimmel to ABC’s waves overturned the political script, aligning the late evening actor with several conservative personalities who do not agree with federal regulators who try to close him for freedom of expression – even if President Trump continued to threaten the network.
“I want to thank people who do not support my program and what I think, but who supports my right to share these beliefs anyway,” Kimmel told viewers during his opening monologue on Tuesday evening.
In recent days, Trump has increased efforts to stifle his political opposition and what he perceives as a liberal bias in media coverage through prosecution and regulatory actions, a decision which is increasingly concerned with the supporters of the president and the info -user personalities.
The fire storm on freedom of expression came following the comments that Kimmel made on the way in which the “Gang Maga” was trying to score political points of the massacre of Charlie Kirk. On a conservative podcast, Brendan Carr, a Loyerist from Trump who directs the Federal Communications Commission, accused Kimmel of “the most sick driving” and suggested that there could be regulatory consequences for local television stations whose programming was not used.
After Disney took “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Outside the air in ABC last week, some high -level Trump allies feared that the threat of regulating the speech will take too far – and that the conservatives could be the next if the federal government should follow.
“If we adopt the FCC stripping licenses of anyone who says something you disagree with whom you disagree, the next Democratic president who arrives at the White House will do it and come after everyone from the Center,” said Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a critic of Kimmel, previous comments in which he compared the Mafia threats on Wednesday. “It is a slippery slope to oblivion.”
Trump, however, was dismayed by Kimmel’s return and threatened legal action, following a model in which he continued the main media on the negative coverage of him.
“I think we are going to test ABC on this subject. Let’s see how we do it,” said Trump late on his social media platform on Tuesday, suggesting that a trial against the network could potentially lead to “lucrative” regulations. “A real group of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad grades.”
Combined, Trump’s legal threats and Carr’s comments have fueled a net debate on freedom of expression, and if Trump and Car are trying to level the rules of the game for conservative voices or to launch a coordinated and illegal attack to silence liberal checks. Consequently, Carr – the author of an FCC chapter in the Playbook of the right 2025 project – landed under media projectors and as the target of a congress survey.
Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) And eight other Democratic senators wrote a letter to Carr on Wednesday expressing “a serious concern” concerning the apparent role of the FCC in the suspension of Kimmel, and asked for answers on the role that the agency played in IT and its justification.
“The FCC regulatory authority on dissemination licenses has never been intended to serve as a weapon to silence criticism or punish satirical comments,” the senators wrote. “The mission of your agency is to serve the interest of the public, not to act as an application of political punishments against the media which deploy those which are in power.”
California Atty. General Rob Bonta also wrote to Carr, accusing the Trump administration of “carrying out a dangerous attack on those who dare to denounce” and to call Carr to revise the defense of freedom of expression, in particular by disowning his previous remarks on Kimmel.
In the days that followed Kimmel, Cruz and other influential preservatives, who have long ransacked the host of the night, expressed their opposition to his situation according to the concerns that the FCC tries to regulate the discourse on the waves.
“You don’t have to love what someone says on television to agree that the government should not get involved here,” the former Senate republican chief said Mitch McConnell, in a social media position on Monday.
Podcast host Joe Rogan said that he “did not think that the government should be involved, never, dictating what an actor can or cannot say in a monologue” – and told the conservatives that they are “mad” if they do not think that such tactics could be “used” against them. Chande Owens, an far -right influencer, said that Kimmel’s suspension was an attack on freedom of expression and said that she did not agree with the government controlling what can be said.
Ben Shapiro has raised concerns about the potential government.
“I do not want the FCC in the case of saying local affiliated that their licenses will be deleted if they diffuse equipment that the FCC judges informally false,” said Shapiro, warning that “one day the shoe will be on the other.”
Conservative podcastor Tucker Carlson said that last week he did not want to see the “bad actors” use Kirk’s murder as a means of restricting freedom of expression, which, according to him, is the cornerstone of Kirk’s inheritance.
“You hope that in a year, the turmoil we see in the aftermath of her murder will not be exploited to provide laws on hatred speeches to this country,” said Carlson.
In his opening monologue, Kimmel approached the same theme. He said Carr’s tactics were “non -American” and compared them to what is happening in authoritarian countries like Russia.
“This show is not important,” he said. “What is important is that we live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”
On the podcast last week, Carr called Kimmel’s remarks on the alleged Kirk shooter “some of the most sick drivers as possible”. He then said: “Frankly, when you see things like this, we can do it the simplest way or the hard way. There are means of changing driving, acting, frankly, on Kimmel, or there will be additional work for the FCC to come.”
Carr denied the allegations on Monday that he had threatened to draw the licenses from television stations and that he played a role in Kimmel’s suspension, saying that “this did not happen in any way, a form or a form”.
“They completely distorted the work of the FCC and what we did,” he said at a conference in New York, accusing the Democrats of engaging in a “projection and distortion campaign”.
Carr said that the FCC wanted to allow local television parking owners to “repel national programmers, even when they think there is content that they do not think in their judgment – not my judgment, but their judgment – makes sense for local communities.”
What happened with Kimmel, said Carr, is that local television stations “for the first time for a long time and said:” We do not want to manage this program, at least at the moment. “” He said Disney, a national programmer, then made his own business decision not to broadcast Kimmel for a few days.
After Disney brought the show, the Sentlair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Media Group station owners said that they would not direct it on their ABC affiliates, alluding to the future conflicts that could be played in the media landscape.
Carr opened its Chapter Project 2025 on the FCC by writing that the agency should “promote freedom of expression”, but also took on the side of Trump by criticizing the broadcasters for having pretended to have pretended a prejudice against the conservatives and declared that it would use the power of the agency to ensure that they serve better for “public interest”.
Bob Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said that the political fight on Kimmel had been interesting to monitor – in part because of the bipartite reaction of the suspension and the apparent influence of the administration on this subject.
“I am encouraged by the fact that it is not only the Democrats who complained of this, it is Republicans like Ted Cruz,” said Shrum. “It starts at least to modify a means of deterrence for the federal government which goes too far on this.”
While Trump was irritated by Kimmel’s return, Shrum found that his social media post ended with the line: “Leave Jimmy Kimmel to rot in his bad grades.” This has shown the limits that the president sees on his power to wipe Kimmel of the Ondes, he said.
“This is not the kind of final line that says:” We come after you “,” said Shrum.
