The Trump administration's pressure on Disney and ABC to suspend late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel over his comments about slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk has caused a rift in the core constituencies that make up the president's voting base, former GOP speechwriter turned anti-Trump commentator Tim Miller told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday evening.
Disney made the initial decision as two of its major affiliate distributors — Sinclair Broadcast Group, known for its right-wing ownership, and Nexstar, currently seeking merger approval from Trump's Federal Communications Commission — announced they would be dropping his show. But amid a massive outpouring of fury from consumers and a long line of celebrities, Disney relented and announced he would be back on the air as of Tuesday.
"Tim, just take me inside what's happening on the MAGA right," said Wallace.
"Well, look, this is maybe a glimmer of hope," said Miller. "I love when I get to do a rare glimmer of hope on this show, Nicole. It's like, there are a bunch of issues in which the right is happy to be totally cynical and partisan about, like, nearly all of them, frankly. And we've seen that with Donald Trump, right? Or they've been willing to be lockstep with him and apologize for him no matter what his corruption is, no matter his cruelty, no matter how non-conservative he is. Tariffs, we can go down the whole list."
By contrast, he continued, "The free speech issue is just so fundamental. It's not even just Republicans, but it's society-wide. It's just such a part of the American fabric. Like anybody that's American is like, this is, it's the First Amendment, like, we are in America. We get to say what we want. Like, we don't have kings. We don't have dictators telling us to shut us up. And it's it is instinctual for a whole lot of people, not for a whole lot of people, not everybody, but a whole lot of people, and that is including some people within the Trump, within the MAGA movement."
"It includes a lot of the people who are in, like you played all the actors. It's obvious why ... all of them care about this," said Miller. "But that's also true of the podcasters, of comedians, of a lot of the manosphere folks. We talk about this. This is just essential for a lot of folks in this country, including a lot of people that supported Donald Trump. And so while they're willing to suffer a lot of other indignities and humiliations on his behalf, there's at least some minority percentage of them that start to get their back up. And it's like, hey, you're, I'm not allowed to say what I want. I'm not allowed to criticize people in power. I'm not allowed to make jokes about things."
That state of affairs, he added, "That feels very un-American. And I think it's a good sign that we've seen some pushback from within his coalition on this, from a bunch of different vectors."
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