\n<\/p>\n
\n\tCall Jimmy Kimmel naive.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn\u00a0an interview this summer with Variety<\/em> for a story examining Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on media companies and journalists, Kimmel was asked if he was worried that the Trump administration would start coming after comedians in the same way.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWell, you\u2019d have to be naive not to worry a little bit. But that can\u2019t change what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cAnd maybe it is naive, but I have the hope that if and when the day comes that he does start coming after comedians, that even my colleagues on the right will support my right to say what I like. Now, I could be kidding myself, and hopefully we\u2019ll never find out. But if we do, I would hope that the outrage is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut now that Trump and his backers have succeeded in forcing \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d (for now) off the air, the MAGA-verse \u2014 supposedly, a group of full-throated supporters of free speech \u2014 has reacted with glee, not outrage. <\/p>\n \n\tTrump, of course, reveled in the news. \u201cGreat News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,\u201d the U.S. president posted on social media while on a visit to the U.K. Carr also celebrated Kimmel\u2019s suspension: When CNN correspondent Brian Stelter asked FCC chairman Brendan Carr for comment after the ABC announcement, Carr sent him a GIF with \u201cThe Office\u2019s\u201d Michael Scott (Steve Carell) and Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) making \u201craise the roof\u201d gestures.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cEveryone please congratulate @marcorubio, the new host of ABC\u2019s late night show!\u201d Vice President JD Vance wrote on X. Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, who had hosted the interview with Carr that resulted in Kimmel\u2019s benching by ABC, posted: \u201c2 years ago. Jimmy Kimmel: \u2018I\u2019m telling you right now Donald Trump is going to jail.\u2019 He is now cancelled and unemployed.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHow do right-wing figures square their support for the First Amendment with Kimmel\u2019s sidelining? The narrative pushed by the political right is that Kimmel was put in the penalty box because ABC affiliates were outraged about comments he made about Charlie Kirk\u2019s killer. Here\u2019s what Kimmel said on the Sept. 15 show: \u201cWe hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize the kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.\u201d Note that Kimmel wasn\u2019t saying he thought the alleged shooter was a MAGA supporter \u2014 but that\u2019s what conservative people heard.<\/p>\n \n\tGreg Gutfeld, who hosts a primetime comedy show on Fox News, said on X that Kimmel \u201cdeliberately and misleadingly blamed\u201d the killing of Kirk \u201con Kirk\u2019s allies and friends.\u201d Responding to \u201cThe Five\u201d co-host Jessica Tarlov\u2019s comment that \u201cFree speech advocates on the right have a lot of heavy lifting to do,\u201d Gutfeld wrote, \u201cPretty easy lift. You have a right to be wrong. The company you work for has a right to pull you for it. The heavy lifting is on your end or you would have made your case. \ud83d\ude0e\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhat that ignores is that the Trump administration used the force of the U.S. government to successfully get Kimmel suspended. The FCC\u2019s Carr, on Johnson\u2019s podcast, explicitly threatened ABC and its affiliates if they didn\u2019t \u201ctake action\u201d on Kimmel: \u201cWe can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there\u2019s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.\u201d Nexstar responded soon after Carr made those comments, saying it would stop airing \u201cKimmel\u201d immediately. Not coincidentally: Nexstar\u2019s pending $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna requires the FCC\u2019s approval, including an exemption of the current ownership cap (or an elimination of the rule). After Sinclair joined the Kimmel boycott, ABC decided to suspend the late night host to figure out next steps.<\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, former Fox anchor Megyn Kelly posted \u201cGOOD RIDDANCE\u201d about Kimmel\u2019s suspension and evidently believes Kimmel doesn\u2019t have the right to free speech in this case. \u201cI have zero doubt ABC was overwhelmed with absolutely furious calls\/comments\/emails from truly-FED UP viewers, and knew it had crossed a deadly serious line.\u201d She wrote that \u201cwhat the Left doesn\u2019t seem to understand and needs to hear is that MAGA has f&cking HAD IT. We are ANGRY. We are INCENSED watching the L smear us, our ppl, literally getting some of our friends killed (not to mention our president shot and nearly assassinated again weeks later) and then LYING about it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn the interview with Variety<\/em> this summer, Kimmel was asked how he\u2019s doing mentally, given the grind of talking about the Trump administration day after day. He said jokingly that \u201cI\u2019m taking a lot of medication for my Trump Derangement Syndrome, trying to take it, but otherwise, just every day is full of surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMichael Schneider contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Call Jimmy Kimmel naive. In\u00a0an interview this summer with Variety for a story examining Donald Trump\u2019s attacks on media companies and journalists, Kimmel was asked if he was worried that the Trump administration would start coming after comedians in the same way. \u201cWell, you\u2019d have to be naive not to worry a little bit. But<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[533,419,13600,235,441,1053],"class_list":{"0":"post-22208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-free","9":"tag-happened","10":"tag-hoped","11":"tag-jimmy","12":"tag-kimmel","13":"tag-speech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}