David Letterman shared his thoughts on ABC indefinitely suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! amid the host’s comments around the Charlie Kirk shooting this week, calling President Trump’s presidency an “authoritarian criminal administration” and told a New York crowd that when he was a network late night host for years, he was never “squeezed by anyone from any governmental agency” on his political humor.
Lettterman appeared on Thursday afternoon on a panel at the Atlantic Festival, which began today in lower Manhattan and will continue into the weekend as the news and culture magazine’s editors and writers host and appear on panels with thought leaders and celebrities. Letterman was at the festival to appear for an “Ideas Session,” which also featured playwright and novelist Ayad Akhtar and an interview between him and comedian and actor Richard Ayoade.
“You know, I just, I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct? It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous,” Letterman said as he was introduced by Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, with whom he briefly discussed the Kimmel news from the stage. “And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”
The former host of NBC’s Late Night and CBS’ The Late Show also laid into the Federal Communications Commission’s Brendan Carr, referring to the regulatory agency chief, who was appointed by Trump, as a “goon.”
“This guy [at] the FCC said, ‘We can do things the easy way. We can do things the hard way’. Who is hiring these goons? Mario Puzo,” Letterman said, adding that he has been texting with Kimmel and that he is doing just fine amid the show’s suspension and the controversy that has caused a media frenzy since its announcement on Wednesday evening.
On Wednesday evening, ABC announced that Kimmel’s eponymous late night show, which has aired on ABC for 22 years, was “indefinitely suspended” 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.
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 J.D. 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.”
At the Atlantic Festival, Letterman spoke further on Kimmel’s situation, the Trump administration, the end of Stephen Colbert’s run on late night at CBS, and the Ellison family, who some believe have designs on creating a media empire and may have been willing to kill off Colbert’s show to appease the president and receive the administration’s blessing
“This is misery,” Letterman told Goldberg. “And in the world of somebody who’s an authoritarian, maybe a dictatorship, sooner or later, everyone is going to be touched. But this is me — for 30 years, I did this for a living. So I see this happen. They took care of Colbert — that was rude, that was inexcusable, the man deserves a great deal of credit, he’s in the Hall of Fame nine times, and to be manipulated like that, because the Ellison family didn’t want to trouble Donald Trump with this move, so they got rid of him.
“Not only got rid of him, got rid of the whole franchise,” Letterman added, referring to the Late Show he hosted for years before Colbert succeeded him upon his retirement. “‘You’re not going to have to worry about anything, Larry. It’s all gone. It’s fine. Good night.’”
“Ten years ago, I was smart enough to cancel myself,” Lertterman concluded on the matter.
