Breaking News from Pod Save America - Jimmy Kimmel Doesn't Hold Back on Trump and FCC Chair In TV Return

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Jon Lovett react to Jimmy Kimmel's return and Donald Trump's pathetic Truth Social response. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In an emotional return to TV after being pulled for making a joke about Trump's reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Kimmel apologized to those he offended, thanked his defenders, and skewered the government officials who tried to silence him. Let's watch a clip. I don't think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me, if you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention. to make light of the murder of a young man.

I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family, and asking for compassion. And I meant it, and I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclaimed.

clear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there was a good chance I'd have felt the same way. On Sunday, Erica Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it was. That's it. That's it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply. And if there's anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that. What did you guys think? I thought that the whole monologue was just outstanding. And we're going to see other parts. But I thought that to nail the tone just right, like there was, I mean,

We just saw him, you know, Jimmy being, Jimmy Kimmel is just a wonderful human being for, like, people who've gotten to know. He's just a really good guy. And so you could imagine this hitting him in that way. And so I think he was, but to do that and then also be really tough on Trump and make jokes about Trump and Brendan Carr and all the other kind of stuff. I thought it was just, it was really, really well done. Yeah. And while avoiding taking the whole thing too seriously, like it's, he starts the whole thing out by playing a bunch of clips of people.

saying how this is the most important late night episode in history. And then he's just in a giant banana costume. Yeah. And he jokes about needing to change. Like he just, he like struck an amazing balance. He like acknowledged, the issue conservatives had with what he said and took that seriously without,

I think, giving into bad faith about it either, which is a really delicate thing because he makes clear that what he is, he, what people claimed he said, but for what he actually said. And then acknowledges the ways in which even that was something he wished he had done differently. And then it was also just really fucking funny. Like I was, I was blown away by it. And also just as just a text, like late night, like it's a speech. He gave a speech. Yeah. And it was as well organized an argument I have seen

from anyone in a long time, politicians, non-politicians. Like, it was excellent. It wasn't flowery. It didn't go too far. It didn't, it wasn't, he never crossed the Delaware. He never, like, sounded like a federalist paper. He just made an argument from the heart. Yeah, you can, uh, it felt good libin out. Yeah, on that. Yeah.

On that, but it was a, it was for an audience and I ended up tweeting this, which was just like, watch it, especially if you don't like Jimmy Kimmel or don't like the show. Like, and as he said, he's not going to convince hardcore MAGA people, and I know he did not. But for, even if you don't like Jimmy Kimmel, even feel like the show that much, it's just a heartfelt speech that I think is like something the country could use right about now. By the way, shout out to Josh Holloway, Lewis Fertel, friends of ours who

work on the show and write help write the monologue. Yeah, Jimmy's an emotional guy. I think that has come out in past monologues where he's talked about personal things like challenges, health challenges his son has faced. But you can tell here he was really moved by Erica Kirk in particular, but I think also he seems stung by the reaction. Like when you say something and you inadvertently hurt people, like you feel terrible and you could tell he felt terrible there. And also the attention it got was probably shocking to him. And according to Harry at CNN. The median Kimmel video over the last six months on YouTube got 240,000 views. Tuesday night's monologue already has 6.7 million views. So thank you President Trump for that.

Searches for what time is Jimmy Kimmel on were up 10,000 percent. So this got a lot of eyeballs. And he made a joke about that too, about the ratings. About the ratings that people need to resubscribe to Disney. Plus, he also, I think, like, handled how he talked about Disney and was honest about that. I thought that was really, like, I just It just was really, like, I was blown away by it as just, like, in an incredibly difficult intense moment, like, kind of dancing between the raindrops. I just thought I was really impressed. You guys see, Colbert said, once more, I'm the only martyr in late night, unless CBS,

got any news? No. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, during his monologue on September 15th, Kimmel said the following, quote, we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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 that led the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, to threaten to retaliate against ABC and Disney. He said they could handle this the easy way or the hard way,

very subtle. Corporations that own ABC affiliate stations announced they would pull the show from their stations. One of those companies is called Next Star. They are waiting on the FCC to approve a merger. And then Kimmel was pulled from the air. We should note that some of those affiliate stations, Sinclair owned stations and NextStar owned stations did not air Tuesday's episodes. so it's sort of unclear the ultimate fate of the show. But to your point, it wasn't all contrition from Kimmel. Here's a clip of Jimmy Kimmel going hard at Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC and other political leaders

that are suppressing free speech. Let's watch. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company we can do this the easy way or the hard way and that these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel or there's going to be additional work. for the FCC ahead, in addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment,

is not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public. Ted Cruz said he sounded like a mafioso. Although, I don't know, if you want to hear a mob boss make a threat like that, you have to hide a microphone in a deli and park outside in a van with a tape recorder all night long. This genius said it on a podcast. Brendan Carr is the most embarrassing car Republicans have embraced since this one. And that's saying, such.

The FCC has a tradition of meddling where they shouldn't under many administrations, but it wasn't always like this. There was an FCC commissioner back in 2022 who worked under Joe Biden, who was spot on. He wrote, President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest. and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor

to draw more people into the discussion. That's why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship. You know who wrote that? FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. I love that. Balsy move, though, to go after the chairman of the FCC. And Trump.

Like, there's a lot of jokes about Trump that he did not pull any punches. He later went on to make fun of him at the UN. I mean, it was, what I loved about it is that as much as he was emotional, he was empathetic towards people who didn't like him, you know, he was going, but he just, he did not pull any punches whatsoever. He did exactly how it usually makes fun of Trump and the administration.

It was really like, I, it's funny, like, I really was living out. Like, I felt really proud. I actually got emotional watching it in part, like, in part because it was so obviously true. And he like, he, like, uses everybody's quotes against them. He uses Ted Cruz. He talks about all the people. but came out against it. And, you know, when we talked about this on PSA,

we didn't know yet that Next Star and Sinclair were still gonna preempt. And so we were talking about the one possibility was that, oh, maybe what happened is Kimmel had been pulled because they were hoping that they could like talk this out and get him back on as quickly as possible. But because he's not back on in those other stations, I think it makes it more clear that public reaction was important.

And this was like, like the reaction the cancellations of Disney Plus, the, the, like, fury at a company bending to Trump clearly played some role in the fact that he's back on the air. And, like, seeing this and seeing how, like, confident he was and, like, proud he was to be out there. Like, it, like, was a reminder, too, that, like, hey, we, you know, Trump is faking it until he makes it. And, like, we don't have to give into that. Yeah. I thought that it was watching, I was like, this is a good, this is a good way to buck everyone up. Yeah. And if you are another comedian or entertainer or run a company, you should not fucking be afraid of this guy.

And I thought that was a good message, too. He does this great. They put together a clip of all the times that Donald Trump said, don't take Tylenol. And they repeated a couple clearly for humor. They had to have because I watched that. But it was so funny how many times he said it.

And then he said, yeah, follow the advice of Donald Trump. And you too can look like a glazed ham with deep vein thrombosis. That's good. That's good. Oh, yeah, I do hope what other comedians and entertainers take away from this is to be brave in the face of a clear authoritarian movement.

I'm also glad to call it the hypocrisy because it's very obvious that Trump is not giving up on this issue and going after Kimmel. Let's put up his post on truth social from Tuesday. I'll read a bit of it too. This is from Donald Trump. I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his show was canceled.

He is yet another arm of the DNC, 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. Sounds like a free speech absolutist. So it's funny just again like all these people that are out there being like, well this was including Brennan Carr, by the way. This was just market forces and this is a business decision. And oh yeah, you know, there was a few people saying, oh, Brendan Carr was unhelpful, but ultimately this is not something

that can be seen as a violation of the First Amendment. And then just Trump comes out there over and over and over again to prove that they're wrong. And Kimmel pulled that out too, like the do it NBC. and the kind of cajoling and the pressure to cancel comedians. He doesn't like, I will say something that jumped out at me that I haven't seen people talking about is we were told by ABC that he was canceled. And that's clearly him trying to get out there that like they had some kind of communication, whether it's true or not true. But it's clearly meant to kind of be like that is directed directly at like I assume Bob Iger or I don't know who as like as both a kind of like threat. And it was just like how brazen, how brazen he is in the face of people online trying to say this was about accuracy and late night comedy. It was funny because you could watch the Republican talking points change in real time, right?

Benny Johnson, who was a T.P. USA staffer who was doing the interview with Brendan Carr initially was crowing about it, talking about how Carr like laid the wood on ABC and on Kimmel. And then overtime, it was like, oh, no, no, no, this was actually just the markets were speaking. and, you know, thousands of voices rose up and told ABC. It's like, no, man, you're so full of shit. This is obviously a threat. It's just, it's, you always, Trump does this all the time. There's always the defenders. There's always people trying to justify bullshit.

They're always trying to rationalize it. And then he just comes out and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, what you originally thought about me was correct. No, no, I'm a, my motivations are exactly what the left says they are. So finally, Kimmel ended by thanking some of the people who supported him. He thanked his audience. He thanked his friends. but he also thanked a bunch of critics

who had stood up for the right to speak freely in this country during this controversy. Let's watch that. Maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don't support my show in what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway. Who I never would have imagined. Like Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candice Owens,

Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even my old pal, Ted Cruz, who believe it or not said something very beautiful on my behalf. I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired. Oh, wait, no,

not that. The other part. But let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, we don't like what you, the media, have said, we're going to ban you from the airwaves if you don't say what we like,

that will end up bad for conservatives. I don't think I've ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is right. He's absolutely right. Yeah, it was great. I also like, you know, we all noticed yesterday that there was this poll that came out that said 99% of people oppose political violence,

but it's not something you might notice if you're online all the time because a bunch of people finding those that are celebrating it and others declaring that were in the middle of a civil war. And I felt a little bit like this is, is him kind of in a similar way, like kind of reaching to the vast numbers of people that are not like hyped up about going after the libs and like don't view politics as like a war against her enemies and who like are like have a gut belief in in the First Amendment and just free expression.

And like conservatives have made a lot of good work about saying that the left is cracking down on free speech when whether it's about Biden and government censorship of people that are VACs or just a culture that isn't tolerant enough of views that the left doesn't like. And they combine those into one story about just believing in freedom of speech. And this is the same kind of thing. And it is a good thing if we get back to the days when the left is like proudly defending the right to speak your mind and disagree and the right goes back to being like hall monitors and scolds.

Like I am very happy with that outcome. A principle is not a principle if it doesn't apply to the other side and your side. and when it's inconvenient for your own politics. That's just... Yeah, I also like that no one is willing to just give Ted Cruz a free praise. You know, all of us, we did it too. Everyone's thinking a little shot at him.

I might have left out Candice Owens. Candice is probably saying, well, the Jews got Jimmy, you know, that's why she opposes it. Just kidding, Candice. He's stood up for Jimmy. That's good for you. Do you know who also probably is happy that he's not getting full praise

is Ted Cruz from us? Right, that's fair. Yeah, I think he did him a favor by the first part. I don't think Ted Cruz wants a bunch of libs saying how great he is so yeah that's what i didn't like my good for ted cruz tweet love you ted all right if you want to support our right to speak freely here at cricket media please subscribe to pod save america on youtube as you can tell when you search on youtube you're more likely to find ted cruz or benny johnson or a bunch of right wing crap than factual information from a progressive

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