#abc-suspension

#abc-suspension

I have seen no reporting that there was pressure from the White House on Jimmy Kimmel, McEnany said. There were public comments made by [FCC Chair Brendan] Carr, but no indication that there was a discussion with Sinclair or the like, but that would be lost upon much of the media.

Minutes after news broke that ABC had bowed to the Trump administration's threats and indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel, Ari Fleischer, the former Bush-administration press secretary, tried to explain why the thing that just happened was not actually what happened. "Liberals want to make this firing about 'free speech,'" he wrote on X, "Did it ever occur to them the issue might be accuracy? Kimmel told his viewers that Charlie Kirk was murdered by MAGA."

"I was shocked, saddened and infuriated by yesterday's suspension and look forward to it being lifted soon," Lindelof wrote. "If it isn't, I can't in good conscience work for the company that imposed it. If you're about to fire up in my comments, just ask yourself if you know the difference between hate speech and a joke. I think you still do."

This framing is transparently false. ABC's suspension of Kimmel was the result of an explicit threat from President Donald Trump's Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, aimed at Disney and companies that worked with it. The move was effective because of the FCC's authority to regulate broadcast TV and, perhaps more importantly, to approve communications mergers in a hyper-consolidated landscape.

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. In between the finger-pointing, there was, uh, grieving on Friday the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.

Backlash against Kimmel was already well underway online over a Monday monologue about MAGA and the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk when Carr's commented in an interview with conservative host Benny Johnson. In the interview, he urged individual licensed stations to step up. Hours later, Nexstar moved to preempt the program, and ABC soon followed by announcing that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be suspended indefinitely.