President Donald Trump continued to sound off about ABC’s decision to indefinitely preempt its marquee late night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, saying at a press conference while on a U.K. state visit that the show’s host was “fired” over his “lack of talent” and not as a result of comments he made on his show this week regarding the young man accused of killing Charlie Kirk.
On Wednesday evening, ABC announced that Kimmel’s eponymous late night show, which has aired on ABC for 22 years, would be “preempted indefinitely” after comments made during his monologue on his Monday show. Kimmel and Trump have been foes for several years with the president regularly a target of the ABC host’s jokes. Earlier this summer, in a Truth Social post following the news that CBS had canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Trump predicted that “Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go.”
On Thursday, Trump claimed Kimmel was “fired because of bad ratings more than anything else,” along with “saying a horrible thing about a gentleman called Charlie Kirk.” His claim mischaracterized Kimmel’s show being taken off the air as the host having been “fired” by the network, which is not true. He also provided no evidence that this may have been the reason behind the abrupt suspension.
“Kimmel is not a talented person; he has very bad ratings more than anything else, and they should have fired him a long time ago,” Trump claimed at the press conference, which was also attended by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “You can call that free speech or not — he was fired for lack of talent.”
The comments echo similar sentiments Trump made on Wednesday on Truth Social.
On Monday night, Kimmel said during his monologue the following regarding the young man suspected of shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the right’s reaction to his arrest: “Many in MAGA-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk” and “Here’s a question JD Vance might be able to answer: Who wants to hang the guy who was vice president before you? Was that the liberal left? Or the toothless army who stormed the Capitol on January 6?”
Kimmel also said on Monday’s show: “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.”
Kimmel is the latest media figure to fall under what appears to be an attempt to create a chilling effect in the media around criticism of Kirk, which has now led to the firings of Matthew Dowd from MSNBC and Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, among others, this week. Now, the suspension of Kimmel’s show seems to indicate that this alleged attempt to stifle speech has extended to expressing an opinion on how the allies of the president are reacting to news and revelations about the accused gunman.
The Kirk-adjacent comments in Kimmel’s monologue seemed to make few waves at first; the momentum that led to the show’s removal form ABC’s lineup picked up when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a podcast and during his interview said that Kimmel’s comments on Kirk’s alleged killer were “some of the sickest conduct possible” before suggesting that the FCC may look into “avenues” of investigation.
Kimmel’s suspension follows not only a handful of similar firings but several other anti-free speech developments involving network television since Trump retook the Oval Office in January. In his second administration, network TV executives have found themselves in a precarious position, seemingly having to appease the president with their programming if they want to avoid facing his army of lawyers or a weaponized FCC; television networks, unlike cable TV channels, sit within the purview of the Trump administration and his FCC appointee Carr — who ran the commission during Trump’s’ first term but in the interim contributed his insights to Project 2025, the political initiative to redevelop the federal government under a conservative philosophy. Ultimately, ABC and Paramount opted to settle Trump’s suits, which were over a misstatement of facts in one of the president’s legal cases and what he perceived as bias in coverage during the 2024 election; in a move that many say is not-so-coincidental, Stephen Colbert’s late night show on CBS was canceled by Paramount soon after the latter lawsuit was settled; the network maintains the cancellation is a financial move only.
The initial question that led to Trump’s Kimmel comments stem from a kerfuffle earlier this year, when Trump said that he agreed with comments made by Vice President J.D. Vance in which he admonished European leaders for what he called the censoring of opposing viewpoints and their retreat from “fundamental values.” Vance also opined that mass immigration and laws that target speech are the greatest threats to the European continent. After a minor backlash ensued, Trump backed up Vance’s comments, saying he thought “[Vance’s] speech was very well received.” Similar comments came from the president at the press conference.
“It’s so imperative that we stand together for these fundamental rights,” he said on Thursday. “Just last week, an American was assassinated for speaking his mind. He was a great young man with an incredible future. I hope together our nations can lead a movement to defend the glorious traditions of freedom of speech on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Trump also told the gathered reporters that “many British citizens have offered condolences” to him over the death of Kirk, including Starmer. Trump will attend a memorial service on Sunday for the slain activist.
