'Why should the government chime in?': Fox News host presses JD Vance over Kimmel

Fox News host Laura Ingraham pressed Vice President JD Vance on Thursday about the Trump administration's efforts to get late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's show cancelled.

Ingraham interviewed Vance on her nightly show, "The Ingraham Angle." She asked the vice president why the government got involved in trying to take "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" off the air after the comedian's remarks about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Vance argued that the government should play a role in determining whether television shows like Kimmel's are in the "public interest."

"He's currently on the air, and to the extent that he isn't on certain stations, it's because he's not funny and his ratings aren't that good," Vance told Ingraham on Thursday. "We should let these stations determine, not an unfunny comedian."

"Why should the government chime in at all?" Ingraham pushed back. "Does that give them fodder for their argument that this is sort of a pressure, or because of mergers that are coming up, and so this is the government putting its finger on the scales. So, why even mention Jimmy Kimmel?"

The Trump administration has argued that the decision to remove Kimmel was one made by private companies. But a social media post from Trump on Tuesday seems to contradict that argument. Trump said he was told Kimmel's show was "cancelled" and threatened to "test out" ABC if it decided to air the program.

Vance claimed that statements made by FCC chair Brendan Carr about Kimmel do not constitute "coercion."

Carr said on MAGA influencer Benny Johnson's podcast last week, before Kimmel was suspended, that the agency had ways to coerce private companies into adopting certain behavior.

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.”