Jimmy Kimmel wasn't suspended for what he said about Charlie Kirk

It is important to get this right.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely Wednesday by ABC and his late-night show appears to have come to an end. It has been widely misreported that the action was related to the Charlie Kirk murder and its aftermath.

It was not.

Virtually every story about the sacking carried a headline referencing Kirk. The implication was clear that Kimmel was dismissed for something he said about Kirk. That’s the first thing I thought when the news broke.

That did not happen.

Donald Trump had Kimmel taken off the air — as he has suggested would happen after a similar fate befell Stephen Colbert as CBS — because he wanted to.

And because he could.

No need to call in Sherlock Holmes. Trump has long despised Kimmel, along with the entire mainstream media, which he routinely describes — in the grand tradition of history’s worst authoritarians — as “the enemy of the people.”

It’s obvious that Trump dispatched Brendan Carr, his sycophantic chairman of the FCC to put out the hit on Kimmel. Carr, a co-author of Project 2025, apparently did just that, and Disney — pushed by Nexstar, owner of roughly 30 of its ABC affiliates — rolled over.

This is the same Disney that folded a poker hand with four aces in December 2024, to “settle” for $15 million in a sham defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. It seems that Disney had far more to lose than $15 million — exponentially more — by crossing the incoming president.

So, it’s just another footnote to the story that Nexstar also has much larger fish to fry with the Trump administration — needing approval from Carr’s FCC for a pending, controversial, $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. It’s an instant replay of CBS putting profits above principle when it paid off Trump to save a proposed Paramount mega-merger with Skydance from sleeping with the fishes.

Carr offers no pretense of serving as anything but a corrupt political hack. Hours before the Kimmel announcement, he visited the friendly confines of Benny Johnson’s prominent conservative podcast and said this:

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

Sneering at the theoretical independence of the FCC, Carr made himself exclusively available to Sean Hannity and Fox News after the Kimmel sacking. It did appear, however, that lawyers had advised him by then to lose “easy way or hard way” gangsta rap.

As for Kimmel, he should have been the last one targeted for disrespecting Charlie Kirk. This is what Kimmel had posted on Instagram in the wake of Kirk’s tragic passing:

“Instead of the angry finger‑pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Kimmel has said nothing on air since to disparage Kirk or even revisit Kirk’s previous statements that were inflammatory and now seem ironic. I happen to agree with that, having taken the old-school view that Kirk’s murder be “deplored without qualification.”

If you want to view the Monday monologue from Kimmel that has been absurdly linked to his suspension, knock yourself out. You can view it here.

If you do, you’ll be shocked as I was to find that nothing Kimmel said even remotely approached mean-spiritedness about Kirk. Kimmel ridiculed Trump, and deservedly so, for the president’s pathetic response to a sympathetic reporter’s question about how he was “holding up” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

Trump said he was fine and immediately changed the subject to how exciting it was that he was building a big, fancy White House ballroom. It was a singular validation of the daily, brilliant reminders from Trump’s niece — psychologist Mary Trump — that this a man suffering severely from untreated narcissistic personality disorder.

Humiliating Trump can come at a grave price to any company needing anything from Trump’s corrupt FCC. But, as I’ve suggested, Kimmel’s monologue Monday was just a fig leaf for going after him.

It was only a matter of time.

Just remember this: When Trump exerts his will and power over media that depend upon the federal government for their licensing — and in the case of giant corporations, far more — he is not acting like a dictator.

He’s acting as a dictator.