Before ABC pulled the plug on Jimmy Kimmel Live! “indefinitely” on Wednesday (September 17) night, Jimmy Kimmel was reportedly expected to clarify the comments he made on the previous episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! about the murder of Charlie Kirk that drew ire from the chairman of the FCC and others on the right.
Deadline reports that the late-night host was planning to address his controversial quote about Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Kirk last week, while he was speaking at an open forum event at a Utah university.
The quote Kimmel said on his Tuesday (September 16) show that courted such backlash was, “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.”
According to the trade, Kimmel was going to explain that he was not suggesting Robinson was a member of the Donald Trump faithful, but that he was ribbing those who were scrambling to distance themselves from the accused shooter.
ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! after one of the network’s major affiliate partners, Nexstar, announced its intention to preempt the late-night talk show “indefinitely” after the FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, publicly pressured ABC affiliates to do so.
Earlier in the day, Carr said in a podcast appearance, “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead… They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest… Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it’s time for them to step up and say, ‘This garbage, to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future, isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities.’ But this sort of status quo is obviously not, not acceptable where we are.”
The news of Kimmel’s suspension also comes in the wake of CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, another program that was sharply critical of Donald Trump and received the president’s ire as a result, ahead of a merger that required federal approval.
In response to the news of Kimmel’s suspension, Trump wrote on his social media that he wanted NBC to do the same for Late Night With Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.