'Jumps off the screen!' CNN data guru dives into GOP's glee at Jimmy Kimmel punishment

CNN's Harry Enten flagged a pair of similar polling numbers that underlined Republican attitudes to President Donald Trump's crackdown on his media antagonists.

The president's Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, threatened to revoke broadcast licenses for stations that continued airing Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show, which prompted ABC parent company Disney to dump the host hours later on Tuesday. Enten told "CNN News Central" that polls show Republicans are thrilled.

"There are rare points in which I see a piece of data and it just sort of jumps off the screen at me, and this is one," Enten said, "because I really just think it tells the entirestory, and this is among Republicans. [Pollsters asked in December whether] the media is biasedand should be punished. Look atthis: 71 percent of Republicans agree with the idea that the media is biased and should be punished. They absolutely, Republicans areabsolutely loving what ishappening right now to Jimmy Kimmel, absolutely love thewords that are coming out of Brendan Carr's mouth."

"The bottomline is that they believe thatthe media is biased and shouldbe punished," he added. "So taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air, if there'sgovernment influence there,they're absolutely enjoying it."

ABC's corporate parent indefinitely suspended Kimmel after two major local TV operators, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, which each have mergers awaiting FCC approval, pressured the network to drop him, and Enten presented findings that show a similar number of Republicans believe the government already has a role in media programming.

"It's one thing if theidea is, okay, Jimmy Kimmel isbeing punished by his owncompany, right, Being punishedby ABC, being punished by Disney," Enten said.

"But the idea that the government is influencing it, I don't think Republicans aregoing to have much of a problem with it because take a look here. Republicans already thinkthat the the U.S. media and U.S. news organizations are, in fact, influenced by government interests. Look at this, again amongst Republicans, look at this: 64 percent – this is, again, even before the Kimmel news broke, 64 percent of Republicans believe the U.S. media isinfluenced by governmentinterests. A great deal, we're talking two-thirds of Republicans, and then you get another 26 percent who say it's somewhat influenced by government interests. That totals up to nearly 90 percent."

"Republicans like the idea that Jimmy Kimmel is being punished," he added, "and they're not at all going to be against the idea that the government might be influencing it because they already think, two-thirds already think that the government is already influencing the U.S. media a great deal."

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