Today, Explained - Silencing Kimmel

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

ABC’s “indefinite” suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show has people worried about the First Amendment under President Trump. This episode was produced by Danielle Hewitt and Denise Guerra, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram and Noel King. Donald Trump appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" when he was running for president in 2016. Photo by Randy Holmes/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you were worried you'd never hear another late-night host mock the president again, it's going to be okay. John Stewart decked his set out in gold. Is Donald Trump stifling free speech? Of course not, John. Americans are free to express any opinion we want. Seth Myers knows Trump's threatening him personally. If you've ever seen me say anything negative about him, that's just AI.

Jimmy Fallon got dubbed. During the trip, protesters managed to project images onto the sides of Windsor Castle of Trump standing next to his good friend, Jeff Goldblower. Colbert at this point has nothing to lose. Remember, like, in week one of his presidency, Gulf of America. Call it Gulf of America. Sure, seems harmless, but with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. And Jimmy Kimmel still hasn't said a thing. Silencing Kimmel coming up on Today, Explain.

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Megan Rapino here. This week on A Touch More, ESPN sports anchor and podcaster L Dunkard joins to discuss the WMBA playoffs, the season's overachievers and underachievers, who got her vote for MVP and the other end of season awards. And why? Check out the latest episode of A Touch More, wherever you get your podcast, and on YouTube. Now your host for today. Jimmy, Steve, I mean, Sean Ravisferm. Margaret Hartman is here. She's a senior editor at Intelligence.

And Margaret, how long have you been aware of the comedian Jimmy Kimmel? Oh, I've been aware of Jimmy Kimmel since I was in high school. I was a man show reviewer, a little bit surprisingly. Good to remember that Jimmy Kimmel was once the co-host of The Man Show. Can you remind people what The Man Show was for people who don't remember? Yes. The Man Show was a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central

and it was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla The theme was kind of men The theme was kind of men pushing back against the scourge of feminism Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pioneers in the field of bitching, moaning and complaining. Men feel intimidated by a woman who can beat them at a sport. We wouldn't know.

The famous ending to the show was girls jumping on trampolines. Because, of course, this is what all men really want to see. Did you ever think, man, that guy one day is going to be the leader of the resistance? No, absolutely not. Let's talk about how Jimmy Kimmel goes from that guy to a political awakening, maybe? Yeah. He became much more political in the Trump years. He's hosted his late-night show, I think, since the early 2000s. And, well, about five months into Trump's first term, the Republicans were trying to repeal Obamacare. And Kimmel gave this incredible 13-minute monologue where he

talked about how passionate he was about protecting people with pre-existing conditions. I have a story to tell about something that happened to our family last week. I'm sorry, you know, I try not to get emotional, but it was a scary story. So he opened up about his son, Billy, who was born with a heart condition, and talked about how pre-Oabomacare, someone with a condition like Billy's probably might not have been able to get life-saving care if they didn't have wealthy parents. If your baby is going to die and it doesn't have to, it shouldn't matter how much money you make. I think that's something that, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?

I mean, we do. The tide was already kind of turning against the GOP's Obamacare repeal push at that point, but that was seen as like the final bloke. They got so much media intention. It was such a viral moment. and it's unusual to see a late-night host tearing up about the importance of children having health insurance. So it really struck a court with public. How does Trump respond?

About six months later, we actually didn't know this at the time, but in early 2018, Trump had people at the White House reach out to Disney executives and try to censor Kimmel. So we only found this out in 2023 from a Rolling Stone, report, talked about how multiple people knew about it. At the time that Trump said something about how Kimmel was doing very dishonest things that he would have once sued him over if he wasn't president. It's possible that Trump also reached out to executives at other companies and tried to censor them as well. He knew he did something similar with Saturday Night Live,

but it does seem that he was particularly irritated with Jimmy Kimmel just one year into his presidency. And that's partly because Jimmy Kimmel didn't just stop at this Obamacare repeal, right? That's right. He continued speaking out about Trump policies. He gave a similar monologue after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. And he spoke to Trump directly. He was begging him to do something, saying, now, and don't you dare let anyone say it's too soon to be talking about it? Because he said it after Vegas. He said it after San Francisco. He said it after Sandy Hook, you say that after every one of these eight now fatal school shootings we had in this country this year. Children are being murdered. Every late-night host targets the president

a bit, whoever they are, and certainly they haven't gone easy on Trump. It's probably gone harder on Trump, but Kimmel in particular had a few of these viral moments where he really articulated the case against certain Trump policies. And beyond Tyriont, monologues, he also just likes to roast the president, right? Yes. So one of their most notable moments actually happened once Trump was out of office at the 2024 Academy Awards. Toward the end of the show, right before Best Picture was announced, Kimmel starts speaking. He says, oh, we just got a review. It says, Has there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars? His opening was that of a

less than average person, trying too hard to be something which he is not and never can be. The commenter used the term George Slopidopoulos, and I knew, oh, no, that's truth social, that's Trump. So then you have the scene of everyone in this audience of Hollywood's A-lister's, Hollywood's biggest night, just laughing at Trump. And I'm assuming that did not sit well. And Trump provided some evidence that he did not love this because six weeks later, just out of nowhere, he started posting more truths about Jimmy Kimmel, mocking him inaccurately, saying that he bungled the best picture announcement. It was actually Al Pacino. And I see Oppenheimer.

But he was clearly so upset about this that he was still thinking about it and lashing out at him publicly six weeks later. Of course, Kimmel isn't the first late-night talk show host to lose their job, to be suspicious. to be canceled. That's Stephen Colbert. How does Kimmel respond to that? That all the late night hosts, like during the writer's strike, they had all come together and done a podcast together, Strike Force Five. Let's meet the Strike Force, starting with the former host. So we're like, we're not in those 90s days of late night wars. They were all really tight with each other. Kimmel, I talked to Molly, your wife. And what do you think was her answer? Do you remember when you fell in love and when you knew that? When she fell in love or when I fell in love? That's why it makes the game a little confusing.

You wrote these questions so bodily, Jim. So they all spoke out against Colbert's cancellation, and Trump hit back a lot. And funnily enough, every single time he talked about Colbert, he would mention in the next breath. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Jimmy Kimmel's going to go to. And I guess that wasn't enough for El President Demente because he posted the word is, And it's a strong word at that. Jimmy Kimmel is next to go

in the untalented late-night sweepstakes, which is alarming. Because I don't know if you know this. Jimmy Kimmel is me. Sometimes he would mention other people. He's called out Fallon. He's called out Seth Myers, but no one as consistently or as angrily as Jimmy Kimmel.

And shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely no talent who are paid millions of dollars for in all cases, destroying what used to be great television. It's really good to see them go. And I hope I played a major part in it. Oh, you delicate, chubby little teacup, you did we hurt your feelings? Which brings us to this week where the prophecy is realized, what happened to Jimmy Kimmel? ABC announced that they were suspending his show indefinitely over comments that he made during

Monday's show about the Charlie Kirk assassination. He made a comment that got attention on the right with Benny Johnson who was interviewing FCC chair Brendan Carr and I believe on Wednesday he was saying look at these horrible comments that Jimmy Kimmel made and Carr said that they need to look at remedies to that and the broadcasting groups pushed back and said they did not want to air Kimmel's show and we're going to air Kirk tributes instead. Now Kimmel is on suspension, though Trump has announced incorrectly that Kimmel was canceled, which isn't the case.

He also said Kimmel was fired, but right now we're just kind of in a limbo state with him being suspended. And as of Friday morning, Kimmel hasn't said anything. What exactly did Kimmel say that got him suspended? because I was trying to watch the clip on Wednesday night that apparently got him in trouble that was played on this Benny Johnson's show. And I was like, eh, not terribly inflammatory stuff here.

Yeah, it's definitely not the most extreme thing anyone has said after this tragedy. Kimmel said... 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.

So Mega World objected to him characterizing the views of Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Charlie Kirk's murder, as being one of them. And when we think about Kimmel and Fallon and Colbert, the narrative seems to be that people aren't watching these shows as much as they used to. The audience is getting older. They're really reliant. on YouTube for views, but it's not bringing enough revenue. Why is Trump so interested in late night?

Well, Trump's an old school guy, and when he was coming up and becoming famous, late night was huge. We had the late night wars between Letterman and Leno, and that's very much when Trump was becoming a celebrity, and if you could appear on Carson, you'd made it. you were a star. So I think in Trump's mind, these guys maybe have a bit more cultural power than they actually do if you talk to some random Gen Z kid who maybe only sees a Kimmel clip once in a while on TikTok, if that. So he sees all these celebrities, all these TV guys

disrespecting him. And I think that may be what's fueling the anger a little bit. But also, kind of the American way. That's true. Free speech. First Amendment. Maybe some people in the administration should look it up. Margaret Hartman, Intelligencer at New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com. Coming up next, what in the FCC is Brendan Carr doing? Fox Creative.

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The FCC chair, Brendan Carr, has been all over the television talking about Jimmy Kimmel. What's he been saying? Well, he's been saying a lot of things, not all of which hanged together particularly well. But the first thing that he said was on the Benny Johnson podcast. You know, when you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. Where he basically built a case against Jimmy Kimmel. And what appears to be in action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was

somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person. If that's what happened here with his conduct, that is really, really sick. So he was very emphatic in that conversation that... Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. As we know, Neckstar and Sinclair both complied and pulled Kimmel's show off the airwaves. And since then, I would say that Brendan Carr's story has changed a bit. What's he saying now?

Well, Wednesday on Sean Hannity's show on Fox News, he suggested that the real problem was that late-night hosts had transitioned away from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court gestures that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology. And Nexstar, as you noted, stood up and said, look, we have the license and we don't want to run this anymore. We don't think it serves the interest of our community. Sinclair did the same thing. So there's more work to go, but I'm very glad. So that's a very different case than the one he was originally building, which seemed to be that the American public was being actively misled in a conspiracy.

This was instead a critique of late-night hosts and the increasingly political nature of the content of those monologues. Since then, he has argued a third thing, which is the late-night comedy was no longer profitable, and so this is just a free market at work. You write that Next Star, which decided to pull Kimmel, may not have done this for reasons of the free market, but because Next Star wants something from Brendan Carr and the FCC.

What does Next Star want? Yes, Next Star is in the midst of finalizing a $6.2 billion deal with Tegna, which is another broadcasting company. And if that deal goes through, Next Star's reach, which to U.S. households, would increase from 39% to 80%. So it would be a huge dump, obviously. For Next Star, tremendously profitable, it would massively expand their audiences and presumably their profits. However, not only are they awaiting approval from Trump's FCC, headed by Brendan Carr, they also need the FCC to change a longstanding rule about broadcasters, which holds that no company can hold, can collectively reach more than 39% of U.S. households.

And so obviously they need that to change. So there are two pretty important asks that Nexstar has for Carr specifically. One is for him to approve the merger, and two is for him to change that rule so that the merger can go through. It wasn't just Next Star. Sinclair Broadcasting Group also pulled Kimmel. Why do you think that is? Sinclair, which is the second largest owner of TV stations in the country, has also been lobbying to raise that 39% cap. And they have also been lobbying actively for deregulation, which Brendan Carr has given every signal that he's receptive to doing. Carr says the FCC is committed to ending all of the rules and the regulations that are no longer necessary. is called delete, delete, delete.

So St. Clair, too, has specific reasons that they want to ingratiate themselves with Carr, and they accordingly not only praised Carr for his decision, really giving him credit that he himself seems not to be taking, but also, in addition, suggested that Jimmy Kimmel should apologize to Charlie Kirk's family, make a donation to them, and also make a donation to Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk's organization.

So they're really doubling down. And in lieu of Kimmel's show, they're going to be airing a one hour special about Charlie Kirk. How does this fit in with how Brenton Carr has been behaving in his time as chair of the FCC? Well, it's very much of a piece. Carr is the author of the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. So he has been thinking about this for some time. ostensibly in the name of protecting free speech, he has for quite a while now been targeting various companies, including social media companies like Meta, including Comcast,

and of course including ABC, NBC, and CBS. What we've seen is you've got national news media, ABC, NBC, CBS, and they're exercising more and more control over those local TV stations. I don't think that's a good thing for the country. We're trying to reverse that. Suggesting that they are not serving the, quote, public interest by airing the content that they air. So this all seems to be very much in line with what Donald Trump has been suggesting needs to happen next. There is a kind of timeline that you can trace between what Donald Trump posts on Truth Social and the actions that Carr seems to be taking shortly thereafter.

He has never made any effort to really protect the agency from charges that it's responding to the president. And in fact, he goes to some trouble to give Trump credit for things that the FCC has done, which is a surprising strategy for someone who is making a case for being his free speech warrior. But in interviews, he very much characterizes these legacy media networks as the enemy and as Trump's enemy and himself as kind of an avenging fury who is there to put things right. President Trump was talking aboard Air Force One yesterday, essentially threatening TV networks. I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He's a patriot. He loves our country. And he's a tough guy.

So we'll have to see. Where does your brain go when you hear that the president suggested the FCC should revoke TV? licenses for negative coverage? Well, he's already done that a number of times. So that part itself isn't new. He's been threatening to pull ABC and NBC's licenses since the Cold Bear merger. But the part that does feel new is explicitly linking that threat to Brendan Carr. That gets rid of any plausible deniability that there might have been that there was not

basically collusion and coordination happening between them. You know, he just came out and said it. So I think for those of us who suspected that that was already what was happening, it's a very troubling confirmation. For those who were in denial, I don't know what they say in response to that because it is a very direct link between the FCC and the president and the president openly saying that he is using a federal agency that is supposed to be independent as a hammer to go after his critics. The FCC is supposed to be an independent agency overseen by Congress. People at the moment are genuinely worried. Many people are genuinely worried about censorship and freedom of speech in this country. What does it mean for freedom of speech if the chair of the FCC is apparently going after independent media?

Well, it's very chilling. They are normalizing an environment in which you need to punish the president's critics if you're a media company seeking approval from a government agency or in some other way placate him make him feel good perhaps give him some money

the naked corruption of that is deeply disconcerting and listen that's really serious that has implications that go way beyond late-night TV right? I mean this is about television and it's also about the consolidation of media companies that can reach people through television. So if this merger goes through Next Star,

which has already said that it will not air material that it deems offensive, which at this point appears to include criticism of Trump supporters, its reach is going to extend to 80% of American households. Like, they have made it clear. Next Star has made it clear that they are willing to dictate what people have access to or be dictated to

because it's pretty obvious that they are responding to external demands coming from the president and from the FCC. That's beyond worrying. So it's, you know, it's a very dire moment. Lily Loofborough, she's a TV critic for the Washington Post. Danielle Hewitt and Denise Gera produced today's show I'm in Alassadis, our senior editor, Laura Bullards, our senior researcher, who check the facts.

Patrick Boyden, Adrian Lilly are our engineers. I already said my name. What's yours again? Noel. It's today explained. It's today explained. Thank you.