WSJ What’s News - Trump Threatens ABC Over Kimmel’s Return to Late-Night TV

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

A.M. Edition for Sept. 24. In a punchy, and at times, emotional monologue, Kimmel took jabs at members of the Trump administration, including the president himself. Plus, a Democrat wins Arizona’s special election, narrowing the GOP’s House majority even further. And, WSJ climate reporter Ed Ballard explains how China is pulling ahead of America in the clean-energy race. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at viking.com. Jimmy Kimmel makes his TV comeback with a punchy and at times. emotional speech. Plus, how a Democratic victory in an Arizona special election will slim Republicans majority in the House. And we explore how China is pulling ahead of America

in the clean energy race. There's a range of different reasons to do with the president's own views that oil and gas, which the U.S. has in abundance, should be a key tool for promoting U.S. interests around the world. And that means this sort of drill, baby drill agenda. Wednesday, September 24th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel made his on-air return last night, following a four-day suspension by ABC and Disney over comments he made about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In a roughly 17-minute monologue, Kimmel took jabs at members of the Trump administration,

including the president himself and Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, whose comments on a podcast last week kicked off a chain of events that led to Kimmel's suspension. In one of the more powerful moments of his speech, Kimmel became emotional when speaking about Charlie Kirk. 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. He also used the opportunity to emphasize the importance of free speech and encouraged Americans to speak out against Trump's threats against other TV hosts and news outlets. 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. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke.

Before Kimmel's return, Trump threatened ABC over its decision. to allow the show to come back, referencing in a social media post a multi-million dollar settlement that the network reached last year to settle a lawsuit filed by the president. In his post last night, Trump wrote that, quote, we're going to test ABC out on this, saying that, quote, this one sounds even more lucrative. A spokeswoman for ABC declined to comment. The Democrats are chipping away at the GOP's narrow house majority with a special election win in the battleground state of Arizona. Democrat Adelita Griehalva is set to take Arizona's seventh congressional district,

filling the seat of her father who died earlier this year. Once Griehalva is sworn in, the Republicans will have 219 seats in the House versus the Democrats 214, leaving them with a slim majority of just five. Her victory comes hot on the heels of Democrat James Walkenshaw's win in Virginia, and that's before two more special elections in Texas and Tennessee toward the end of the year. Speaker Mike Johnson has at times been struggling to hold the House together, facing rebellion on issues such as the release of files relating to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, President Trump has shifted his position on the war in Ukraine,

saying the country could win back all of its territory. In a lengthy social media post, he also encouraged allies to shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter NATO airspace. He made the comments shortly after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Later, while speaking to French President Emmanuel Macron, Trump described Russia's war as aimless and called for an end to the bloodshed. It's been a terrible war should have ended and Russia should have stopped it.

But they've been three and a half years and they've gotten that so far. So we'll see what happens. but the other side can fight too, and they've proven that. Maybe it's a paper. It could be that Russia is a paper tiger. I don't know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody, of killing 7,000 people a week for nothing, for nothing. Trump also said he was disappointed his relationship with Putin had failed to bring an end to the war.

And in a surprise for many diplomats at the UN, Trump committed to continue to provide weapons to Europe's NATO members, which are then sent to Ukraine for its forces to use against Russia. Alibaba shares jumped today after the company said it would invest more than $53 billion in artificial intelligence, above its original target. The Chinese Tech Titans rally helped it more than double gains so far this year, with its stock at its highest level in four years. Adding to the market buzz was Alibaba's release of a new AI model, the Kwen 3 Max,

which it described as its, quote, largest and most capable large language model yet. Journal reporter Tracy Chu says Chinese companies like Alibaba are hoping to catch up to U.S. AI giants, NVIDIA and Open AI. So most of Chinese tech companies, they are stepping up effort to build their large language models and also to ingrate it into its ecosystems.

And maybe that there are still gaps between U.S. and China in terms of the large-language model capabilities. But we're seeing that China is catching up quite fast. So for example, we have Cassie Wood's investment firms reopened position in Alibaba recently. So the two funds' investments in Alibaba's ADRs total around $16.3 million. So that actually signals the interest from aboard in Chinese tech. And China said it would no longer seek special treatment that is available to developing nations in current and future world trade organization negotiations.

In a sign, the country is seeking to curry favor with President Trump ahead of a planned summit between leaders of both countries this fall. China's claim of developing nation status has long been criticized by the U.S., in part because of the special designations that it gives the Asian country. The status, which is self-declared grants nations benefits like setting higher tariffs and allowing longer timelines for implementing agreements. China's status as a developing nation has long been a prickly topic. Its economy is the second largest, though its per capita income remains closer to that of countries such as Thailand or Mexico, with wealthy metropolises

offset by vast poorer regions. The decision by China comes just days after President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to meet in South Korea this fall. The two countries have been making some progress with trade negotiations, recently approving a deal allowing TikTok to keep operating in the U.S. coming up, we take a look at why China is overtaking the U.S. in the clean energy race and how that's causing concerns among some countries. Plus, women are increasingly worried about Trump's economy, and now men are too. More on those stories after the break. Millions of Americans use credit cards to purchase goods every day. The dirt Urban Marshall credit card mandates put the secure transactions you rely on at risk,

leaving you vulnerable to hackers and foreign cybercriminals that want your data. Hackers win. You lose. Guard your card before it's too late. Tell Congress your data security is not for sale and oppose the Durbin Marshall credit card mandates. Paid for by Electronic Payments Coalition. showdown between the U.S. and China, the two superpowers are offering competing visions for the future of energy. While the U.S. is retreating from renewable energy, China, on the other hand, is expanding. It represents a new reality that America has given up its efforts to challenge China in the renewable energy industries that increasingly power the global economy. Our Kate Bolivant

spoke to journal climate reporter Ed Ballard about these diverging strategies and what President Trump's retreat from renewables looks like. The biggest thing is probably the way the one big, beautiful bill removed or ended or brought forward the phase out of renewable energy subsidies that the Biden administration had increased. So that's hundreds of billions of dollars of federal spending. But that's not all of it. They've also increased the regulatory roadblocks to developing wind farms especially, but also solar projects, removed or reduced grant funding for new technologies.

and that has fed through to a collapse in investment in the manufacturing industries that will cater to renewables, so things like EV factories and battery plants. So the second quarter was the first time on record that more green manufacturing projects were cancelled than were announced, according to MIT and the Rhodium group. That gives you a sense of the scale of this U-turn in industrial policy. In comparison, how does this differ from China's energy strategy? So to understand the difference, I think a key thing is just that that since the fracking boom, the US has been the world's biggest oil producer and China has always been a net importer of oil.

And that means what looks like this amazing economic opportunity if you're sitting in Houston looks like the same commodity looks like a big risk if you're somebody in Beijing worried about risks to China's economy. And so that's part of the reason why years ago China went pretty hard and investing in renewables. And at the same time, the country has been sort of following this tried and tested development path of building up export industries, things like EVs and batteries, and solar panels are sectors that have been identified as potentially important, lucrative, sort of future-oriented growth industries for China to dominate. And now what we're seeing is

that plan come to fruition. I mean, on the deployment side, in the first seven months of this year, China installed 277 gigawatts of wind and solar power capacity, and that's about four times as much all the utility scale power plants that analysts expect will be installed in the US across all sectors this year. So that gives you a sense of just the pace at which China is building out renewables. But on the sort of manufacturing side, all the batteries, the components for the batteries, the same for solar power, even wind turbines increasingly. China has sort of three quarters of the supply chain for those key pieces of equipment and in some

cases much more. Where does this leave other countries in places I'm thinking like Europe and South America that want to transition to clean energy quickly? So lots of places are weighing up different sets of risks, right? On the one hand, fossil fuels, they come with the risk of price volatility and of course they contribute to climate change, which lots of governments are worried about. But on the other hand, all of this low-cost technology coming from China sort of represents risk in other ways. For example, if you're sitting in Germany, you're really worried about the future viability of your auto industry in a world that's quickly electrifying. In Europe, some policy makers are raising the concern that the use of Chinese technology and sort of a key infrastructure

on the grid could pose cybersecurity risks. And perhaps there's a possibility. that the grid could be sabotaged remotely. And so with China, like you were talking about making such inroads into renewable technologies, is that raising concerns in Washington as well? Yeah, and this is something that Washington has been worried about for years. So one part of the Trump agenda has been to limit Chinese market access through things like restrictions on the use of batteries that come from high risk, restrictions. But this is really continuing the trend of past administrations. The Obama administration

imposed tariffs on Chinese solar panel imports. So on that side of things, this is really, there has long been a concern about over-reliance on arrivals exports. The real difference is under the Biden administration, that concern was coupled to something else, which was an effort to establish domestic manufacturing. And that is the part that, at least when it comes to renewables, that's very much taken a backseat under the new administration. Ed Ballard, thanks so much. Thanks.

And finally, a recent journal poll has revealed a growing gender gap in how Americans view President Trump's economy. While there are signs showing some men are getting pessimistic, More women than men are switching to less expensive groceries and saying they aren't confident that they could afford a vacation or have money for a comfortable retirement. The journals Aaron Zittner and Janet Adamy have been looking into this and asked some women who took the poll why they feel so uncertain about the economy. Here's one reply from Mona Perillo in California.

I feel like the economy is spiraling, especially for women, because of course there's always been a pay gap. The poll also shows that the gap between men and women's views on the economy is wider than at any other point since 2019. Janet explains what's driving this. We know that women in general earn less than men, and one variable is that women tend to take on more caregiving. They're making a calculation about having flexibility, perhaps working fewer hours, so they can be home and take care of their families. And so I think what you see is that oftentimes, especially over time, that can compound and put pressure on. their earnings. So even when their family is out of their house, even when their kids are grown, by the time they're in that last phase of that career, in some ways women's earnings can be behind.

And we'll continue to keep tabs on the economy and especially what this means as we head into next year's midterm elections. You can watch the full video with more analysis from Aaron and Janet at WSJ.com. And that's it for What's News for this Wednesday morning. Today's show is produced by Kate Bullivant and Freddie Folston. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening. com.