First Amendment advocates on Wednesday evening demanded that media companies “stop capitulating—and start fighting back” against President Donald Trump and his administration after FCC chair Brendan Carr successfully pressured ABC to pull comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show from the air indefinitely over comments he made about the aftermath of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.
ABC announced the decision just hours after Carr said on a podcast that the network; its owner, the Walt Disney Company; and its affiliates must “find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel.”
Carr took issue with remarks Kimmel made in his Monday night broadcast—remarks that had more to do with Trump’s far-right MAGA movement than Kirk or the suspect in his killing, Tyler Robinson, but which right-wing activists claimed portrayed Robinson as a conservative.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.
Carr said Wednesday, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” suggesting the FCC would take action to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the air unless ABC made the decision itself.
According to The New York Times, Disney CEO Robert Iger and co-chair Dana Walden made the decision to take the show off the air, and Rolling Stone reported that in meetings on Wednesday, many executives believed Kimmel had done nothing wrong—“but the threat of Trump administration retaliation loomed.”
Nexstar, which owns ABC affiliate stations across the country and is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger with rival company Tegna, fell in line soon after Carr’s remarks, saying it would preempt Kimmel’s show on its affiliates. Sinclair, another affiliate owner, also said it would preempt the program and called on Kimmel to make a “meaningful personal donation” to the Kirk family and Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, for describing the far-right’s decision to immediately blame the left for Kirk’s assassination.
Craig Aaron, CEO of the First Amendment advocacy group Free Press, noted that ABCattempted to “buy off Trump with a ridiculous legal settlement last year” when it gave $15 million to his presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit—but the move made no difference when Carr disapproved of Kimmel’s remarks.
“ABC keeps caving regardless of how meritless the administration’s claims are—and how much lasting damage they’re doing to free speech in America,” said Aaron. “These companies are turning the public airwaves into another propaganda arm of the Trump regime.”
“Donald Trump and Brendan Carr have turned the FCC into the Federal Censorship Commission, ignoring the First Amendment and replacing the rule of law with the whims of right-wing bloggers,” added Aaron. “They’re abusing their power to shake down media companies with their dangerous demands for dishonest coverage and Orwellian compliance with the administration’s demands. This is nothing more than censorship and extortion.”
The administration’s latest attack on the media, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has been characterized by “last-minute settlements, secret side deals, multi-billion dollar mergers pending Donald Trump’s approval.”
“Trump silencing free speech stifles our democracy,” she said. “It sure looks like giant media companies are enabling his authoritarianism.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a video posted on social media that the US public is witnessing “the systematic destruction of free speech in this country,” noting that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was also recently cancelled, effective next May. CBS announced the decision as its parent company, Paramount, was seeking approval of an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance. The merger was approved days later.
“This is a moment for the country to mobilize,” said Murphy. “This is a moment for all of us to be out on the streets protesting because if you don’t raise your voices right now about the assault on free speech, about Donald Trump’s decision to disgustingly exploit the murder of Charlie Kirk, so as to try to permanently render powerless and impotent those who politically oppose him—there may be no democracy to save a year from now.”
“This is a red alert moment,” he added.
The abrupt cancellation of Kimmel’s show in response to his comments comes after numerous attacks on free speech by the Trump administration. In March, former Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk were among the foreign students who were detained by masked immigration agents and threatened with deportation for speaking out against US support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. Both have since been released; on Wednesday Khalil and his legal team said they would fight an immigration judge’s ruling that could pave the way for his deportation to Algeria or Syria.
Trump also announced a lawsuit against The New York Times and book publisher Penguin Random House over reporting and news analysis that was unfavorable to him.
“Jimmy Kimmel is the latest target of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional plan to silence its critics and control what the American people watch and read,” said Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology Division at the ACLU. “Cowering to threats, ABC and the biggest owner of its affiliate stations gave the Trump FCC chairman exactly what he wanted by suspending Kimmel indefinitely and dropping the show.”
“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,” said Anders. “The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC‘s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”