On Jimmy Kimmel and free speech

Image courtesy ABC

Shortly after the September 17 episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” aired, ABC announced that the show had been “indefinitely suspended.”

The decision came after host Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about the recent murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In his monologue during the September 16 episode, Kimmel said this: 

“We 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.”

Those 40 words were the beginning of a long and complicated battle over the difference between free speech and hate speech.

The next day, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a podcast hosted by political commentator Benny Johnson. After claiming Kimmel said Kirk “deserved” to die, despite his actual comments saying the murder was “senseless,” Johnson asked Carr for his thoughts on the situation.

“(ABC has) a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with… an obligation to operate in the public interest,” Carr said. “We 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's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr added that he wanted Kimmel to apologize for his comments, and that there was a “path forward” for his suspension.

“I think it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back… and say, ‘we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out,’” he added.

Later that day, Nexstar, owner of several ABC affiliate stations, announced that they would preempt the program ”for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show.” Sinclair, another affiliate owner, said they'd do the same.

With ABC’s announcement of suspension, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was effectively cancelled— around 24 hours after the September 16 monologue. This piece from “Last Week Tonight” explains the situation well.

Many people expressed concern over these actions, worrying that a government directive to suspend someone for protected speech was dangerous, especially when it was successful. Advocates of the decision claimed it wasn't government-influenced, and was simply the consequences of Kimmel’s “horrible” comments about Kirk. His comments, though, weren't about Charlie Kirk. They were about Republicans’ response to his death. This mischaracterization is almost more dangerous than Kimmel’s suspension— so many people were so willing to deliberately spread misinformation to farm outrage and score political points on the back of someone accusing them of doing just that. A widespread willingness to discard facts for a more preferable reality— what Stephen Colbert famously coined “truthiness”— undermines the most basic tenant of democracy. In related news, Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” was cancelled in July, a decision Trump similarly celebrated, in a post where he also suggested that “Jimmy Kimmel is next.”

None of this is subtle. It doesn't have to be. All this administration and its allies have to do to remove a voice they don’t like from the conversation is publicly label the person as a problem, make up a reason to remove them that everyone from random Twitter users to the president acknowledges is smokescreen, and label anyone that disagrees as unamerican under whichever truth-flexible term is currently on the menu. It’s as easy as that.

Frustratingly, the government is so buttoned up that it can seemingly do anything it likes. Further, there are people who will defend anything this regime does, regardless of morality or legality. But, free speech isn’t free if it’s unevenly allowed. It’s more important than ever to speak out against the unconstitutional and dangerous actions of this administration— otherwise, it will continue, unchecked, in perpetuity.

ABC announced on September 22 that they were lifting the suspension, after many “thoughtful conversations." The next day, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to the air— though, not everywhere, as Sinclar and Nexstar were still preempting it on their stations. Kimmel’s first monologue back got 18 million views on YouTube and earned him a standing ovation over a minute long.

“As I was saying before I got interrupted,” he began, before receiving another standing ovation.

“I don't think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution and it isn’t,” Kimmel said. This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this… (Freedom to speak is) something I'm embarrassed to say I took for granted, until they pulled my friend Stephen (Colbert) off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates… to take my show off the air. That's not legal. That's not American. That is unamerican and it is so dangerous.”

Many people are hesitant to call Kimmel’s return a win, though. ABC & Disney didn’t reverse their decision because they became champions of free speech. They did so because they lost $6.4 billion between the cancellation announcement and September 22, as a result of people canceling their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions in protest.

When ABC announced that he was returning, Trump said on social media that Kimmel was, “yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this... Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.”

This contradicted earlier comments that the government wasn't involved in Kimmel’s cancellation.

“The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs… because he can't take a joke,” Kimmel said.

If anything about this is clear, it's that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returning doesn't mean any of this will end. The deliberate blurring of hate speech and free speech as labels, and the targeting by Trump and his allies of anyone who speaks ill of him, will both continue. Free speech isn’t a guarantee, unless we fight for it. Trump has already signaled that he may see critical speech as “no longer free,” and suggested taking action based on it.

“I hope that if that happens, or if there's even any hint of that happening, you will be 10 times as loud as you were this week,” Kimmel said in his monologue. “We have to speak out against this, because he's not stopping.”