- Joy Behar defended Jimmy Kimmel and criticized “weak men” who “can’t take a joke” on The View.
- “Per usual, Joyless Behar is wrong about many things,” the White House reacted in a statement to EW.
- “Jimmy Kimmel’s terrible product isn’t a free speech problem; it’s a talent problem!” it continued.
After Joy Behar defended Jimmy Kimmel by criticizing the world’s “very weak men” who “can’t take a joke,” the White House responded to the comedian’s remarks in an exclusive statement to Entertainment Weekly.
“Per usual, Joyless Behar is wrong about many things,” reads the statement from White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
Jackson maintains that the recent ordeal involving Kimmel’s temporary suspension from his ABC talk show over comments he made about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin “has nothing to do with free speech.” She then calls Kimmel a “low-ratings loser” whom she feels “has always been free to make whatever bad jokes he wants.”
She continues, “But a private company — who is the one that decided to take his show off and put it back on — is under no obligation to lose money producing an unpopular show.”
David Dee Delgado/Bloomberg via Getty
Kimmel’s return to Jimmy Kimmel Live! was, however, watched by approximately 6.3 million people on Tuesday night, after the host returned to the air following the Walt Disney Company suspending him for alleging that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” on a Sept. 15 broadcast.
Still, Jackson adds that “Jimmy Kimmel’s terrible product isn’t a free speech problem; it’s a talent problem” and that “Joyless is probably worried about her own garbage ratings — we can’t blame her!”
Despite the White House’s assertions about The View‘s ratings, a show press release from July indicates that season 28 of the show was “its most-watched in four years” in key demographics, and was, at the time, ranking No. 1 in terms of number of households and total viewers (2.55 million) “among all network daytime talk shows and news programs for the 5th straight season.”
EW has reached out to representatives for The View, Kimmel, and Disney for comment.
Earlier Wednesday, Behar defended Kimmel in a Hot Topics segment that saw the show’s cohosts praise his Tuesday evening monologue that touched on events of the past week, after President Donald Trump blasted ABC for having the “not funny” comedian back on the air.
“The thing that’s interesting about this to me is that autocrats, dictators, go after comedians. He’s not the first one. Trump is not the first one to do this,” Behar said. “[Vladimir] Putin, for example, his first actions when he took power was to take over a TV network that aired a comedy show that mocked him with puppets. In Iran, they’ve done something similar. Even in Turkey with [Tayyip] Erdoğan, they don’t like a comedian.”
ABC/JEFF LIPSKY; Tasos Katopodis/Getty
Though The View has pulled in a roster of high-profile interview guests in recent weeks, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, and Academy Award nominee America Ferrera, the show has faced heavy criticism from political figures.
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Both the White House and the Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr have made several statements about the show in recent months, including in July when Carr told Fox News there might be “consequences” for the show’s liberal bias.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.
