US President Donald Trump has suggested some TV networks should have their licenses “taken away”, as he backed America’s broadcast regulator in a row over the suspension of ABC host Jimmy Kimmel.
The Disney-owned network announced on Wednesday evening it was pulling the comedian off air “indefinitely” amid a backlash over his remarks about the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk last week.
On Monday, Kimmel suggested the suspect was a Maga Republican, although authorities in Utah had said the alleged gunman was “indoctrinated with leftist ideology”.
ABC took Jimmy Kimmel Live! off air after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened action over his remarks.
Trump spoke about the issue to reporters on Thursday aboard Air Force One while returning from a state visit to the UK.
“I have read someplace that the networks were 97% against me, again, 97% negative, and yet I won and easily, all seven swing states [in last year’s election],” the president said.
“They give me only bad publicity, the press. I mean, they’re getting a licence. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.”
In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel, 57, said the “Maga gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and trying to “score political points from it”.
He also likened Trump’s reaction to the death of his 31-year-old political confidant to “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish”.
After the shooting, Kimmel had also gone on Instagram to condemn the attack and send “love” to the Kirk family.
Speaking to Fox on Thursday, FCC chairman Brendan Carr said the suspension of Kimmel was not “the last shoe to drop”.
“We’re going to continue to hold these broadcasters accountable to the public interest,” he said.
“And if broadcasters don’t like that simple solution, they can turn their licence in to the FCC.”
The FCC has regulatory power over major networks, such as ABC, and their independently-owned affiliates.
But the agency has limited authority over cable channels, like Fox or MSNBC, and no authority over podcasts or most streaming content.
Legal scholars say the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech, would prevent the FCC from lawfully revoking licenses on the basis of political disagreement.
Joe Strazullo, a late-night writer who worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! from 2015-21, told the BBC in Los Angeles there was an atmosphere of fear in the writers’ room.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the threat of them being out of work,” he said. “I’ve touched base and nobody knows exactly what’s going on still and they’re working things out behind the scenes.”
Kimmel’s suspension was announced on Wednesday evening shortly after Nexstar Media, one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, said it would not air his show “for the foreseeable future”.
Nexstar called his remarks about Kirk “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.
Carr praised Nexstar – which is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn (£4.5bn) merger with Tegna – and said he hoped other broadcasters would follow its lead.
Sinclair, the largest ABC affiliate group in the US, said it would air a special remembrance programme dedicated to Kirk during the original time slot for Kimmel’s show on Friday.
Kirk, a high-profile conservative activist and father of two, died of a single gunshot wound to the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on 10 September.
His widow, Erika Kirk, was named on Thursday as the new head of the organisation her husband co-founded, Turning Point USA.
A 22-year-old man was charged on Tuesday with aggravated murder, and prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.
Writers, actors, former US President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats condemned Kimmel’s suspension.
Obama said the incident represented a new and dangerous level of cancel culture.
“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” he posted on X.
Actor Ben Stiller said it “isn’t right”, while Hacks star Jean Smart said she was “horrified at the cancellation”.
“What Jimmy said was free speech, not hate speech,” she added.
On Thursday, the hosts of late-night shows on rival networks rallied behind Kimmel.
“This is blatant censorship,” Stephen Colbert on CBS said. “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” he said referring to Trump, whom he frequently criticises.
“Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100%.”
In July CBS announced it would not renew The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for another season.
The Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild, two Hollywood labour unions, condemned the suspension of Kimmel as a violation of constitutional free speech rights.
But others argued it was accountability, not cancel culture.
“When a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time and then that person is punished for it that’s not cancel culture,” said Dave Portnoy, who founded media company Barstool Sports.
“That is consequences for your actions.”
Late-night Fox host Greg Gutfeld argued that Kimmel had “deliberately and misleadingly” blamed the killing of Kirk on the activist’s “allies and friends”.
British presenter Piers Morgan said Kimmel had “lied about Charlie Kirk’s assassin being Maga” and his comments caused “understandable outrage all over America”.
“Why is he being heralded as some kind of free speech martyr?” he added.
But one of Carr’s FCC leadership colleagues, commissioner Anna Gomez, criticised the regulator’s stance on Kimmel.
She said that “an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control”.
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