Howard Stern has never been shy about expressing his opinion, and on Monday morning (Sept. 22) the SiriusXM superstar broke his silence on what he called a troubling situation that is near and dear to his heart for several reasons: the suspension of his friend Jimmy Kimmel from ABC.

Stern opened Monday’s show by breaking his recent vow to not talk about politics after vehemently speaking his mind during the most recent presidential election, saying, “I can no longer keep my mouth shut.”

“I feel obligated to say something, because s–t’s getting outta control,” said Stern, who has famously been a free speech advocate for more than half a century amid his own battles with censorship and government entities threatening to curtail his right to speak freely on the airwaves. “This involves the network ABC. They did something really dumb and f-kin’ horrible,” Stern added, before going into a classic fake-out bit complaining about the changes to the network’s dating show The Bachelor.

“Everyone knows what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. The bottom line is you really don’t need my voice to know that something horrible happened at ABC,” Stern said about the network’s decision to temporarily suspend Kimmel’s show from the air amid backlash over the late night host’s comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.

Stern, who said he considers Kimmel one of his closest showbiz friends and who frequently has the comedian on his SiriusXM show, said on a personal level the network’s decision was painful to him because he loves Kimmel and wife Molly McNearney, whom he called “dear dear friends.”

“I believe Jimmy is such a big talent, and quite frankly so is his wife. They’re two of the funniest people I have ever met,” Stern said, noting he’s so enamored with the couple’s comedic chops that he “shuts down” around them so as not to try to compete with their quick wit. Noting that many people have written to him asking “what should we do?,” Stern said he is doing something.

“I feel all of this is a smokescreen to stop talking about what’s really going on. We got a problem with inflation, gas prices, groceries, there’s all kinds of problems,” said Stern, who said he’s spoken to Kimmel but did not ask if the suspension — which was applauded by President Trump, who also encouraged NBC to do the same to Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers — is permanent or if the veteran late nighter fears he might get fired.

“I just know when the government begins to interfere… when the government says, ‘I’m not pleased with you, so we’re going to orchestrate a way to silence you’ it’s the wrong direction for the country. It isn’t good, and I should know.” Stern then recalled that in the 1990s the Federal Communications Commission put pressure on the shock jock’s then-parent company, Infinity Broadcasting, by threatening to slow down its planned merger with Viacom over its objections to the content of Stern’s notoriously envelope-pushing morning show.

Stern was able to survive that battle, but he said now ABC, as well as many universities, broadcasters and social media company owners, were being put in the same position, and, he said, “they all bent the knee and they all cower.”

While he said he feels for ABC and their tough position, “someone’s got to step up and be f–kin’ saying, ‘hey, enough, we’re not gonna bow.’” Stern was clear that he’s not trying to lead any boycott movement, but, like many others, he pledged to cancel his Disney+ subscription out of protest to say he doesn’t support the action on Kimmel.

“It’s a scary time when the government starts threatening you, which is not right,” Stern said. “And I don’t think ABC should have to be in this position. It’s ridiculous. But I know most broadcasters would agree with me. I don’t care what they broadcast, whether they’re these right-wing types, or left-wing types, whatever type you are we can’t have the government in this country dictating [speech].”

Stern had been off the air since the Kimmel suspension was announced last week, but in his first chance to weigh in, he said it was chilling to read that ABC’s action came after FCC chairman Brendan Carr made what sounded like a threat to the network during an appearance on a right-wind podcast last week. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

The latter was widely interpreted as a threat by Carr to launch investigations and regulatory action against licensed broadcasters who air Kimmel’s show; shortly after, the owners of dozens of local ABC affiliate stations said they would be be pre-empting Kimmel. While many democrats and free speech advocates interpreted Carr’s comments as an attempt to chill free speech, even such stalwart Trump supporters as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz — who leads the FCC oversight committee — characterized Carr’s statement as a dangerous slippery slope.

“I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas,” Cruz said of the implied Carr threat that he likened to the mob rules in the legendary Martin Scorsese gangster flick. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.’”

Another staunch conservative, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, called Carr’s comments “absolutely inappropriate. Brendan Carr has got no business weighing in on this,” Paul told NBC News’s Meet the Press over the weekend. The FCC does not have legal authority to censor what Kimmel says on his show and many critics have said that Carr’s comment amount to an illegal action called “jawboning,” which is the improper use of threatened government action to influence a private entity.

Whether or not you like Kimmel, Stern said, “it’s about freedom of speech. It’s one thing if ABC wanted to fire Jimmy because they didn’t like him, or he had low ratings… They didn’t want to fire him. They’re being pressured by the United States government. We can’t have that, not if we’re gonna have a democracy. And companies have to say f–k you.”

Well aware that the Kimmel headline will be quickly pushed off the top of news feeds by the next outrage, Stern encouraged fellow defenders of free speech to bond together and accept that “each of us are obligated to be the watchdog for each other’s rights and freedoms… we can’t turn our heads, we can’t pretend this didn’t happen.”