Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be taken off the air “indefinitely” after remarks he made Monday about the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, ABC announced Wednesday evening.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize 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 in his monologue.
Kimmel went on to criticize President Donald Trump’s reaction to news of Kirk’s death after which he played a clip of Trump responding to a question about Kirk by talking about the new White House ballroom.
Shortly before ABC’s announcement, Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar Media, one of the country’s largest TV station owners, said it would stop airing the show after Kimmel’s comments. In a statement, he wrote, “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located.”
Kimmel’s remarks also drew condemnation from Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, who said it “appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into the narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person.”
He added: “What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”
Carr issued a stark warning to the network: “When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr applauded Nexstar’s decision to pull Kimmel’s show, saying, “I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing. Local broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest. While this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.” ABC did not immediately reply to MSNBC’s request for comment. Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to share his thoughts on the news, writing, “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.” Though there has been no announcement that ABC has cancelled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, Trump also called for the cancellations of other late night shows, like NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” CBS cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in July.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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