Bulwark Takes - Conservative Podcaster BLASTS Trump’s Kimmel Crackdown!

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller break down the fallout from Jimmy Kimmel’s ouster and the strange reactions across MAGA media. From Barstool’s split response to Trump’s thin-skinned attacks and corporate media silence.

Hey, guys, me, Sam Stein, managing out of the bulwark here with Tim Miller. Again, we did this last night. We're doing a follow-up today. Jim Kimmel, the fallout, everything that's happening. Kind of predictable, Tim, to see where it is. But, yeah, we've seen a lot of the kind of free speech bro podcast types not too happy about this. Yeah, I think that it is, on the one hand, it's kind of predictable, yes. On the other hand, it's a little bit of a pleasant surprise.

like we do a lot of negative news around here right like just as far as how many of them have spoken out about it it's the type of thing you could just ignore and none of these guys it'd be one thing if it was like they're comfortable to them none of these guys that we're about to talk about who are podcasters comedians um sports guys they might seem to somebody who's outside of that world to be in the same world as jimmy kimmel but like they're really not like jimmy is a different generation than them right they don't have any love loss for the network liberal they don't even find them funny they're like i didn't like i didn't like i didn't like his joke.

They're like, it's stupid, yeah. Yeah, none of them really find him funny, right? So, so for these guys, like, they could have just ignored this, right? Like, that's, you know, one thing that you see oftentimes when there's inconvenient facts out there in the news. And so the fact that so many of them have spoken out, I think, is pretty noteworthy. Okay. Which one do you find most noteworthy?

That's a good question. I've been no, I think the Barstool guys pushing back against the Dave Portnoy, because, you know, for folks, obviously Barstool is, you know, kind of the irreverent, fourths-focused podcast, but they've expanded into a bunch of culture areas. Portnoy is the founder of that. He came out pretty quickly, like, basically on the side of canceling Kimmel. Right. Well, yeah, I have it right here.

I think so. He was trying to draw some artificial distinction, but yes, he defended the cancellation. Yeah, he's trying to say, look, a lot of these guys were all upset about the cancel culture during the woke period. They were like, we didn't, people came after Portnoy. Like, there was this period of time where it was invoked, like, anytime, some, somebody got a new job to go through tweets they sent from eight years before. And if they found something racist they said in there,

they try to get them five. In Portnoy's case, it was women who had come forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, who he then denied and said this is inflammatory and baseless and all that. So this was a very common thing that was happening, whether or not whatever side you were of on it. Portnoy is obviously against that since he was a target of it. And so he comes out pretty quickly and says,

guys, this isn't hypocrisy. This is not cancel culture. This is Jimmy Kimball saying something on a show that, that embarrassed the network and him and him having consequences for it. And so he kind of comes out in favor of this move. And so that's what I thought the most interesting thing was coming from other big Barstool characters who pushed back on it. Maybe we can watch a couple of those clips.

Let's watch the one first from KFC Barstool. Now, the next part of this situation, Nextstar announced they were trying to merge with their biggest rival that would create this one gigantic media conglomerate. But the problem was that kind of violates FCC rules about how much power one group can have on television. But just recently, Brendan Carr, our boy, Mr. Hippocrat, said that his mind was open to getting rid of those artificial limits on how many TV stations one company can own. Now, how do Nextstar and Carr connect? Well, Brendan Carr went on a podcast and said he believes the individual

licensed stations are the ones that need to step up and say, we don't want Jimmy Kimmel. So Next Star, who's trying to get this merger done and needs to break the rules and needs the FCC to change their mind on some of the laws, sees Brendan Carr saying, here's what I want from you guys. And they say, let's fucking give it to them so that we can get our merger done and get our $6.2 billion. It's always about the money. It's never about the free speech. It's never about protecting rights. It's always about the money and how to get it.

I was dead wrong. Shit is fucked on so many levels. So yeah, like, I agree with you. In fact, I think the notable thing here is that they're coming out and they're being like, okay, maybe it's not cancel cultural, but it's worse. it's like it's like the government here is now involved in going after people whereas you know during cancel culture it was you know a mob of online you know sickos who are saying oh this tweet is offensive you know and i get why it might be worse i get why they say that um so i do agree with you i think that's notable i think it's notable because precisely uh they're saying or at least casting themselves

a little bit differently than davis yeah and um you know you could you could see again like i said you could see them saying like oh the big guys on the other side of this why why draw attention who cares i'll talk about something else today right like they i didn't there's no obligation to talk about this story yeah the fact that they chose to i think shows it was a legitimate reaction i think the other thing about that kfc clip i do want to point out sometimes on the left you see people really um kind of stereotype the bro culture and be like these guys are idiots or whatever they just want to do boobs and stuff that dude like that's a pretty like nuanced and It was very well thought out.

Yeah. And so I do think that like sometimes a lot of people who don't ever actually see any of these guys, except if it shows up in their Twitter feed with them saying something dumb. And then they're like, wow, those shows are dumb. It's like, no, actually some of them, at least not everybody, like anything else. But some of them are super thoughtful. And I think that's noteworthy. The more aggressive version of this.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. I got to stay on topic because my favorite response was also in Barcelona. It wasn't on video. It was on Twitter. It was Barstul Nate, Ethan Nate, Eric Nathan, and sorry. He tweeted about this, and he's like, look, this is, you might think Kimmel's terrible, not funny, whatever, but this is, you know, overreach. I think he said, yeah, he said, this is overreach and pretty insane. Wish people didn't let political affiliation blur how

bananas things are right now. Whatever, that's standard, you know, anger over what happened. But the best part was some random person in his replies, because what the fuck does MAGA and an employer that has to answer sponsors and ad dollars have to do with this you think trump called and said cancel or else like just a stream of replies being like yes exactly that's exactly what happened i mean like you literally go down the feed and it's like first first barcelan date's like i mean this is almost exactly what happened hello glad you see how crazy is and then everyone's like yes that's what happened this is what happened and so there is some aversion to what's happening so the other ones a barcel and i think is important and i did play this for jvl this would even got even got the dark heart

of jvl at the end of today's podcast i want to ruin it for people haven't seen the podcast but even see the dark heart of jvill crack after listening to this but um let's listen to the kirk minnehanes show kirk minne does actual um he he has a different show where he's on with port so again like this is not even just an employer it says like a direct rebuttal let's watch i always do the left or no right now in 2025 at 1006 on september 18th uh the extreme right are the biggest group of pussies that has ever existed in america a bunch of because people with with green hair at starbucks because once in a while a fucking guy swam against girls you fucking pussies have broken in half led by the duo of uh of doma trump and consequence culture portnoy who is just waving

his arms at the right to like him again after the thing last week where he said it was Trump's fault privately and publicly that Charlie Kirk died. Now he's like, I've got to get them back. I got to get them back. I got to get them back. Typical I will say fits the tribe profile. All right. So yeah.

So that dude, Midehane is coming into him. It's like yeah, I'm kind of into him too, but here's the thing, man. That dude is like a conservative. We were talking about this a little bit in the green room. It's worth talking about some of these pod guys. Some of these guys aren't really like even Maga or like they're not church going whatever you think is the typical like conservative like they're

they're they're culturally in the conservative milieu now right for the moment but i felt like they were mostly drawn there because they just thought liberals were so fucking natty and annoying and like covid and a lot of it was covid right they didn't like the rules it's more like kind of libertarian not not again not like the principal libertarian sense but just in the sense of like get off my fucking back right right and that dude is out there not just saying that this is bad and wrong not is doing the well like oh this is a chill on free speech he's out there being like not only is this a chill on free speech

but these guys are fucking pussies right now that they're so that they're complaining about this so bad it's like oh you can't take a little joke from Jimmy Campbell oh the Starbucks baristas mean to you and to me I think that's actually super important because A it's coming from inside the house on barstool B it's using the language of barstool

to go after MAGA it's like stop being such snowflakes about all this like so and I think that could work actually that could resonate it resonates because it's true i mean it's true it's true i mean i'm thinking about a lot of all this and it's just kind of just boils down to is that these guys just don't have they have the thinnest skin right like the the kimmel thing was like a line from monday and it wasn't even that it wasn't funny particularly but it wasn't like wildly offensive as far as everything else goes but they

have a really thin skin and so trump's on air force one and and this is the quote he says uh today After all this, he says, when you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven't had a conservative one in years or something. When you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. And he's just complaining about it. And he says, 97% of them are against him. They're getting a license. I think maybe their licenses should be taken away. It's just he's got really thin fucking skin. He said they're not allowed to do it. They're licensed. They're not allowed to do that to hit Trump. I mean, give me a break, man. He's always had thin skin. That's been the... I know. He went after Spy Magazine for what they make fun of his small, small hands. Small hands. You know, the tiny hands.

And this is like a 40-year-old story at this point. I know, but you would think of a certain point, like, you're the most powerful dude in the world. Like, you got billions of dollars gone through shady means, but whatever, you got the money. Like, you can do whatever you want. Like, give it a rest. Who cares? But not this man. There is nothing that can't get under his skin.

want to um talk about a couple other ones and now that that's more into the sports kind of culture space and there's the comedy culture space right and so we can kind of lump all these together i guess the first one i'll throw out there is because i've been talking about him a lot so if you're following the feed close to you know that i'm talking about tim dillon yes it's so good it's so funny and every and sometimes it's like it's a little like all right oh wait i I forgot I forgot I was watching a MAGA podcast right now. Occasionally happens to me. But the dude is relentless.

And I think it's important. And this he posts an Instagram post to that. Instagram post is really funny. Yeah, it's like, and here it is. We'll put it up on the screen. And, you know, he talks about how this is a bad sign. And then he makes a joke at the end about how he's going to continue to support Israel. Because John L.N.S.

unconditionally, in all of its actions. The other thing he's been pointing out is that like the people have been The council culture for the administration has been coming for people that criticize Israel, you know, in addition to people who criticize Trump. So he's making a gag on that. That's pretty funny. Andrew Schultz made a post. He's another one of these podcast guys.

The guy Pete Buttigieg went on. Maybe people remember that. He's on the show Tires, which is really funny. And his post is a little bit more kind of both sides. But again, we'll take it. Moving from doing Trump Apologia to both sides. He's really the first part of the post, but I'm sure I can understand. the best post. I just, I thought it was noting that, again, just to show the breadth of this,

here's his co-host, though, actually. Yes. Akash Singh on his podcast, it's a flagrant pod. And this, this dude, well, anyway, let's just watch it. Jimmy Kimmel should be allowed to say the things we didn't like. That's just what America is. Yeah. And freedom of speech, I've seen it truly under attack in India, where it's like, you can go to jail. This is closer to that than, I think, what the left was doing. Yeah.

Which is like the FCC putting, as much as. we didn't like left-wing shit, like far-left policy or far-left whatever thoughts. It wasn't like Joe Biden was putting pressure on somebody to get canceled for saying retort. You see what I'm saying? That's what makes this different and scarier to me and closer

to what India has. Then that's what makes it an actual attack on free speech to me. Yeah. So there it is right there at the end. As much as we hated left-wing shit, this is different and scarier. Yes. That's what you say. That's my point. They're like, yeah, they're able to process that this is like a level beyond because the power of the state is behind it if you put this into the bigger context right

of like the changing vibes around all this sure if you're these guys like what are the big issues that you were talking about about the like what moved you to the right right you're a comedian so obviously you care about free speech right like you obviously and you did not like the canceled country you didn't like the woke scolding you didn't like these were pretty minor complaints from the grand scheme of things but it is true that the Biden administration did go to the tech companies about certain misinformation posts. Can I just be I want to be clear. My understanding

of that is that Rob Flaherty reached out to a contact at Facebook and said, hey, can you take this shit down? Like that was the extent of it. Yeah, no, it was mid-level Biden. It was like Joe Biden telling like Yeah, that was it. I'm just saying, that did happen. It happened. Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.

They complained about it. I don't think Zuckerberg acted like he had been like, you know, his fortune had been ripped apart. that was the biggest threat to free speech in the history of society that he that one of his mid-level staffers got emailed from one of biden's mid-level flunkies with the request that they didn't follow i mean the thing about that i guess is that like i had mid-level Biden people screaming at me basically every day for like three and a half years like that was part of life and these platforms what do they

think that the administrations don't do that stuff like that always confused me but whatever yes they're all they also they happen this is why this all goes back to people having fit skin if you figure out these guys that was it was COVID restrictions free speech stuff was were basically their animating issues frankly and moving to the right on top of that they

because they were never really conservatives they're not really keen on the war stuff either like that was another thing that drew them to Trump Trump was kind of anti-war stuff a lot of them were in on Epstein issues that's something they followed on conspiracies right and and they weren't big on the immigration stuff

right like it was like well whatever I don't you know you shouldn't be here legally but none of these guys are like immigration hardliners right so if you think of that basket of issues right of what they cared about why they went to trump trump is abandoning them on all of them like on literally all of them like on the epstein shit he's doing a cover up he's on the free speech that he's being worse than biden on the no wars and he's getting full support to israeli you know maybe mixed on that for some of them but he's starting more than his way well potentially right now he's like bombed two boats in the caribbean right like he's not exactly going fully anti-war and then on the immigration

stuff where they weren't with him. That's the area where he's being the most aggressive, right? And so if you just sort of think about that, I think that is meaningful because not just because these eight comedians who have popular podcasts are changing their tone, but because they're like representative of a class of people that Trump did, that Trump and the Republicans did really well with that helped him win the election. And so that's not worth it. I think that's right. I think there's all, in the idea that it's representative, I think is important to discuss because look, I mean, like any, any entertainer with an audience, these people, to a degree, are a little bit captured by their audience. And by that, I mean, they want to reflect

where their audiences are. And so if they're saying this stuff, it's both personal opinion coming out, but also they understand how their audiences feel. They have an intuitive understanding of that. And so I think it matters. I think it's a signifier. I don't know like, you know, who knows what it means when, like, you have a binary choice at the ballot box, right? Because, of course, these things are, you know, not, these things are not, you know, right next to an election. It's sort of in a vacuum. But I do think this is important. And I do think people are like, I think the Trump people kind of, I think Iglesi's put this up, but like, I think they're overreading, like, how much people have an appetite for this status stuff.

Like, it's, it's just who asked for this, right? Like, who wanted this? And here's the other thing not to just go to. upside not to go too positive to him today but um you're feeling positive today i'm not well i just think this is a positive indicator and this is the reason why like if he's going to be successful in his authoritarian takeover right like the worst if he's going to be successful at squashing speech like you would begin to send see signals that people are cowed right that they're worried right and that they're going to start shutting up and we're just not see like we're

In one area where there's one, well, we're seeing across other institutions, but one, I just mean in the speech and commenting against Trump. We're seeing at one place, which is at corporate media, as you do notice, a lot of commentators on TV at the major outlets, doing the caveats. I asked Stelter about this today, where it's like, you know, this is the bad thing. But I should say also, like, you know, there's a little bit of that. Like, you do see that a little bit. But besides that, you know, obviously independent media, people aren't worried. Folks here aren't worried. Subscribe to the book.

And people that are pro, even pro-Trump are not afraid. So, I don't know. He's being called. I'm not like celebrating, but that's a good sign. No, no, it's fine. It's fair. And he's being called out about it. I mean, there are people on the right who have been very skeptical of this.

People who are like really, you know, who slam Pam Bondi, for instance, over her hate speech remarks. There's people who on the right who've been worried about Kimmel, right? Like, I get it. But I do think, you know, the chilling effect is. is real. And I'll just, I know you said corporate media, and I'm just going to give you an example of corporate media for people out there, because I've been kind of refreshed in the pages all day today. And I want to make sure I have this absolutely right, because I would hate to be wrong about this. But the Washington Post, it is, well, this has to be good news because the Washington Post has

recommitted their editorial page they announced to free speech and free markets. So they have, they've got to have weighed in on this pretty strongly. I would get it. Right. They, up until like, a little while ago, it was just this afternoon, had completely avoided the Jimmy Kimmel Auster news. And only after a little while did they get the guy who is the chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Fire, which is a great institution, did they get him to write an opinion piece on it? But if you go to their editorial page, their actual editorial page, which is where the newspaper is supposed to put its positions into print, there's nothing on Kimmel.

There's something on Pam Bondi in what she said, but it's, you know, it's written in like a, well, the left did a two type thing. There's something on Trump and TikTok, but the title is Trump's TikTok dealer, try them for a giveaway. There's nothing on Kimmel. And so, like, you know, maybe there's

maybe they will have something up soon enough. I hope they do. But like, I think this is a case where outlets are like, I don't want to just deal with this trouble. I just don't want to deal with the trouble. I just don't want to deal with the trouble. And that is predominantly in corporate media. Like, we don't give a shit, right?

But corporate media still matters. Broadcast media still matters. It reaches a lot of people. And, you know, I find that to be obviously really concerning. But you should subscribe to the billwork because we don't do a shit. There are other concerning things. I just to say, just to close, not to be Pollyanna. But I did cover this with Stelter, but for folks who didn't see that.

I'm deeply concerned about the local news side of it. Like this, the Sinclair, what they, doing. Oh, yeah. Like, the part of the... Are you excited for the Friday night, Sinclair, tribute to Charlie Kirk? Not really.

The merger of Nexstar and Tegna. But, like, we might be getting to a place where the local media is very foxish and, like, huge swaths of the country. And that is bad. So there's a lot of stuff to be worried about. I'm just saying. I'm just trying to notice positive things when I see them.

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. As Tim noted, if you like media that doesn't feel that it has to like shut up in order to get on the good side of Big Brother, subscribe to the bulletwork, including our YouTube feed, subscribe to our substack page, pay for the subscription. We appreciate it. It funds good journalism like this. Tim, thank you, man. Talk to you later, buddy. Appreciate it. Later, Holmes. Thank you.