- Jimmy Kimmel pulled off air for comments about Charlie Kirk;
- With comments by Adam Serwer and Zack Beauchamp;
- And how a huge business deal is behind this;
- NYT in 1939 describing how Joseph Goebbels did the same thing.
And so the authoritarian playbook continues. Latest victim: late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel. (Whom I’m aware of though I’ve never watched his show.)
Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 18 Sept 2025: Jimmy Kimmel is the latest casualty in Trump’s war on media, subtitled “POTUS and his henchmen are intent on bringing the left to heel”
Recalling the previous TV victim:
When Stephen Colbert’s contract for “The Late Show” wasn’t renewed by CBS in July, President Donald Trump celebrated on Truth Social. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” he posted. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
(Note again Trump’s obsession with ratings, as if that’s all that matters in the world — popularity.)
Now the victim is Jimmy Kimmel. What did he say exactly? Only what I and many people have said.
NY Times, 17 Sept / 18 Sept 2025: ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After F.C.C. Pressure, subtitled “Mr. Kimmel faced criticism from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission for remarks about the politics of the man who is accused of killing Mr. Kirk, the conservative activist.”
ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
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The comments at the center of this week’s firestorm came during Mr. Kimmel’s opening monologue on Monday night. “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,” the host said.
The conservatives are saying this is an outrage, while a couple (much more honest) commentators admit that Kimmel made a “mistake.”
The Atlantic, Adam Serwer, 18 Sept 2025: The Constitution Protects Jimmy Kimmel’s Mistake, subtitled “Free speech is under assault.”
Kimmel seemed to imply that the man accused of killing the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a Donald Trump–supporting conservative. This was at best an unconfirmed rumor at the time, and as more evidence has emerged, seems flatly incorrect. Kimmel should have chosen his words more carefully.
But this was a preliminary conclusion that many people drew, around last weekend, given the killer’s background. And it’s still covered by free speech. Yet conservatives think he must be fired, be cancelled, for not expressing proper adulation to their hero. Their moves are authoritarian, even totalitarian.
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Vox, Zack Beauchamp, 17 Sept 2025: Let’s be clear about what happened to Jimmy Kimmel, subtitled “Trump’s most brazen attack on free speech yet.”
Let’s be clear about what just happened: Jimmy Kimmel, a prominent late-night comedian, was just taken off the airwaves because the Trump administration didn’t like what he had to say — and threatened his employer until they shut him up.
The Trump administration, it appears, has learned to effectively weaponize the regulatory powers of the federal government to punish speech it doesn’t like from people it doesn’t like. This is a favored weapon of modern autocrats; its deployment against Kimmel is a qualitative escalation even above the administration’s previous acts of censorship…
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Yet again, so many moves by the Trump administration seen driven by appealing to the interests of big business. That seems to be where true conservatism lies.
JMG, 18 Sept 2025: Owner Of Stations Behind Kimmel Move Is Awaiting Approval For $6.2 Billion Acquisition Of Its Main Rival. (From Hollywood Reporter)
The decision by Nexstar comes as the broadcast station is seeking FCC approval for its $6.2 billion mega deal to acquire Tegna, a deal that would make Nexstar by far the largest owner of local TV stations in the country.
These kinds of deals aren’t always prominent in the news.
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CNN, analysis by Stephen Collinson, 18 Sept 2025: Trump’s Kimmel shutdown shows how corporate America caters to him
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Conservatives resent the comparison of Trump to Hitler, or conservatives to Nazis, but here’s what folks on Facebook turned up and posted today. From the New York Times in 1939.
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels today ended the professional careers of five “Aryan” actors and cabaret announcers by expelling them from the Reich’s Chamber of Culture on the grounds that “in their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades.”
And here we are.
