'That's not the point!' Ex-Trump official hammered for saying Kimmel can just do a podcast
A former White House official shut down a conservative's attempt to defend President Donald Trump forcing ABC to drop late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel because he didn't like his criticism.
ABC announced it would pre-empt the comedian's program indefinitely after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested the agency would revoke licenses for stations owned by parent company Disney if it didn't punish Kimmel for his coverage of Charlie Kirk's assassination.
"This is not about freespeech, it's about power," said Meghan Hays, a former communications staffer to President Joe Biden. "Whether or not the Disney couldhave fired Jimmy Kimmel,absolutely everyone can, youknow, for what he's wearing.Absolutely. That's not a freespeech issue. But what we aresilencing people for critiquingthe president, and they areusing the power of these [corporate] mergersto be able to do that, and thatis what is not right here, and Ithink what's interesting is whythere aren't more peoplespeaking up about the governmentusing the power to silencemedia. We are runningdangerously close to state-runmedia."
"CNN This Morning" host Audie Cornish pointed out that the media landscape was much wider than it once was, and former Trump communications director Mike Dubke agreed, suggesting that Kimmel might start a podcast instead.
"Can I can I defend you forone second?" Dubke said to Cornish. "What I'm trying to sayand what I took your question tomean is, there are so many otheravenues for entertainers, fornews to go out into the public.Now, with the internet and allthese other places, the mediadoesn't exist as it did before."
"But that's not the point," Hays interjected.
"When there were three stations and they did control the narrative," Dubke continued. "Now the narrative is is there's 1,500 different avenues one can take, and, you know, Jimmy Kimmel can find findanother way. He can. I bet youhe's going to podcast."
"This isn't about Jimmy Kimmel," Hays rebutted. "This is about thegovernment using their power inthe merger here to control, tocontrol organizations andcontrol corporations."
Dubke argued that TV networks made business decisions by pulling talk show hosts who Trump has been targeting on social media for months.
"There were 40 million reasons for [Stephen] Colbert to go off the air," Dubke said. "Thereare, there were Democraticadministrations, along with Republican administrations, goingback decades that have donethis, as I said, in private, andnow it's out in the open andwe're going, 'Oh, my.'"
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