Last night, Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late-night show after he was suspended last Wednesday. Kimmel’s suspension came right after Donald Trump’s FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr openly threatened ABC/Disney over Kimmel, which then led to ABC affiliates owned by Sinclair and Nexstar “pulling” their broadcasts of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Nexstar and Sinclair affiliates continued to refuse to broadcast JKL last night. Well, Brendan Carr is now backtracking on his threats. Variety broke down what Carr said last week and what he’s saying this week:
Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC, on Sept. 17 called Jimmy Kimmel‘s remarks about the killer of Charlie Kirk “some of the sickest conduct possible.” But Carr says now that his comments about Kimmel had nothing to do with ABC’s decision to suspend the late-night host.
On a conservative podcast last Wednesday, Carr threatened ABC and its affiliates if they did not “take action” on Kimmel: “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Carr implied the FCC would pursue “news distortion” allegations against local ABC broadcasters unless they dropped Kimmel. “Frankly I think it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney, and say ‘We are going to preempt — we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out,’” he said.
Soon afterward, Nexstar Media Group, which has 28 ABC affiliates, said it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.” Then Sinclair, which operates 38 ABC stations, followed suit in preempting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — and the company specifically thanked Carr for his remarks. After Nexstar’s announcement, ABC said it was indefinitely suspending Kimmel’s show. Carr celebrated the news about Kimmel’s benching, sending a CNN reporter a GIF of “The Office’s” Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute making “raise the roof” gestures.
On Monday, Carr disavowed playing a part in the Kimmel suspension. In an appearance at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Carr said, “Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level.” That echoed President Trump’s claims that Kimmel was “fired because of bad ratings.”
But according to Carr, it wasn’t just “bad ratings” that prompted the pushback by ABC-affiliated station groups against Kimmel. To hear his explanation, Nexstar and Sinclair had independently decided Kimmel’s show was not in the “public interest.” Carr said his comment that “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” was a hypothetical point about what the FCC might do if there was a “news distortion” complaint filed against Kimmel and ABC — and that despite Carr having called Kimmel’s comments about MAGA trying to exploit the Kirk assassination to score political points “some of the sickest conduct possible,” the FCC chairman claimed he had “expressed no view on the ultimate merits” of such a complaint. “What I’ve been very clear in the context of the Kimmel episode is the FCC and myself in particular have expressed no view on the ultimate merits had something like that been filed what our take would be one way or the other,” Carr claimed Monday.
I realize that most people aren’t paying attention to the minutiae of this, but this is really shocking – Carr’s hostile comments last week were an open threat to Kimmel and Disney, and Carr largely orchestrated Nexstar and Sinclair’s actions, which is why Disney freaked out and suspended Kimmel. Now Carr is like “I had nothing to do with it, it wasn’t me, I didn’t say anything!” Since when does the FCC Commissioner threaten networks over a certain show’s “bad ratings” anyway? Besides the fact that Kimmel and Colbert’s ratings are high, it’s a network’s prerogative to keep a show on the air regardless of good or bad ratings.
Anyway, after Carr backtracked like a big fascist dumbass, Donald Trump then let the cat out of the bag and openly threatened Disney for bringing Kimmel back. This is what Trump posted last night:
Jimmy Kimmel goes after Trump and Brendan Carr for trying to shut down his show:
“The President made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here, fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a… pic.twitter.com/vpmoWQNrON
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) September 24, 2025
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Kimmel Kimmel Live.
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- President Donald Trump gives remarks as he departs the White House Featuring: President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 11 Sep 2025 Credit: Aaron Schwartz/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- President Donald Trump gives remarks as he departs the White House Featuring: President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 11 Sep 2025 Credit: Aaron Schwartz/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
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- President Donald Trump gives remarks as he departs the White House Featuring: President Donald Trump Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 11 Sep 2025 Credit: Aaron Schwartz/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
What’s ironic here is that Kimmel never disrespected Charlie Kirk in any way. He said that MAGA was disrespecting him by exploiting his murder for political benefit. Hit dogs gonna howl.
It could be all of the chatter calling Carr’s actions “extortion” and comparing him to a mafia don that got to him, but I doubt it. Then of course here comes Thump to make the grift obvious.
Jimmy Kimmel’s rating’s aren’t of a concern to of the FCC, they don’t produce the show. That’s a weak sauce excuse. This administration was upset because the president has grape thin skin, and they don’t want people who don’t pay close attention asking questions. They want to rehabilitate Kirk into some Christian missionary, killed by leftist activists.
Pointing out his killer came from a MAGA family and held their beliefs won’t help there. That’s also why they are firing people for doing nothing more than posting Kirk’s speeches, and videos of his ” debates”. They want the uninformed to believe that a youth minister was killed and not a supremacist.
Yes. “ Let’s see how see how we do.” As we say: Money talks — and bullsh*t walks”.
Even more than ringing bells and waving signs, even more than marching, spending according to our values — something the vast majority of us can consistently do — makes a difference, especially with entities that have willingly decided to value profits over the well-being of people. This is something almost anyone can do. Even small incursions in a company’s bottom line or in a political party’s fund raising efforts can have significant impacts. I think about what I want to support— and what I DON’T — with almost every purchase. Multiply that by millions.
The fact is Charlie Kirk’s murder WAS being exploited by MAGA. They had a fucking voter registration table at his memorial service.
Furthermore the shooter did come from a very Republican family that taught him how to use guns at a young age. So Jimmy’s comments were absolutely correct.
Not to thread-jack but I would like to share that a Democrat won a special election in Kirk’s backyard (Tucson) yesterday, further narrowing the House GOP majority. 🩷
Just three more years of insanity, censorship, bullies, lawsuits, racists, and fascists. Can’t believe people voted for this.
Huh. I’m surprised Carr even tried to backtrack at all. He said what he said and then Trump doubled down on the obvious the FCC interference.
Well, the administration tried this with colbert and it worked, so why wouldn’t their threats and bribery etc work with Kimmel? they just made the mistake of doing it all out in the open this time so that the threat was obvious to anyone with half a brain.
And Carr trying to walk it back now is hilarious. He spent last week proudly going on all the talk shows about Kimmel. And tweeting about it. Its all out there now.
I do love though how he TRIES to backtrack and create some plausible deniability and Trump comes in and is all THIS WASNT THE DEAL ABC!!!!!!
I still don’t understand why people listen to a man that has bankrupted every business that he’s had! How can you bankrupt casinos when the house wins?! These corporations need to understand that it is the power of the people that purchased their products and stop acting cowardly to this administration’s scare tactics!
I’m old enough and Minnesotan enough to remember when Paul Wellstone’s memorial was ground into the dirt by the GOP, saying it was “too political” and it was a “political rally” blah blah blah. Of course all the “mainstream” media ran with that and crapped all over Mondale in what was a very tight race already. Coleman won, what with the backing of all the media tearing their shirts over the “inappropriate displays of politics.”
Which is a semi-off topic rant to say that Republicans are dirty skunks with no morals and zero problems with hypocrisy. They own and control pretty much all the levers of power and we can see this with the way they have normalized fascist behavior like the government trying to dictate acceptable speech.
@Betsy, I attended the Wellstone memorial and recently have been thinking a lot about the ensuing fallout. It felt like any goodwill toward the DFL was erased when the conversation shifted to how “inappropriate” Rick Kahn’s comments were. It seems almost quaint 20+ years later but it’s still maddening.
@Vernie – I was also in attendance! Every time I hear the song “Love Train” I still remember the live group vamping as all the VIPs like President Clinton and the rest coming in.
And yeah it still makes me mad too that the media was able to change the narrative to the benefit of the GOP. And it’s not like they wouldn’t have done that regardless, but I didn’t understand that back then.
@Betsy, I always learn from your thoughtful comments and should’ve known you’re a Minnesotan. It felt like such a dark time and yet now feels exponentially worse? I miss Harkin and Feingold almost as much as Wellstone. 💔 Keep fighting the good fight!