The entire media and the Left are filled with rage and anguish today — but not over Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
The outpouring of support for Jimmy Kimmel in the media is overwhelming.
Let’s start with the things we know about Jimmy Kimmel going off the air. Number one, Jimmy Kimmel’s ratings were horrifyingly low. Remember, he was a network television late-night host. And in 2025, only 1.6 million people were viewing his show, being broadcast for free on network TV across the country.
In the advertiser-coveted demographic model, ages 25 to 54, the decline was even more significant. Are you ready for this? In 2015, he had a million viewers in that age range. By 2025, he had, I kid you not, 261,000 people in that age range watching his show.
My show is multiple times larger than Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Over on Fox in 2025, Greg Gutfeld averaged 3.2 million total viewers, even though it’s on a cable channel. It’s not even network TV. When it comes to that 25-to-54 demographic, Gutfeld was averaging 381,000 people compared to 261,000 for Kimmel, meaning that Gutfeld was ahead of him by 46%.
So it’s quite possible that a bunch of local affiliates were simply done with Jimmy Kimmel. And when Kimmel decided that he was going to go on air and suggest that the shooter of Charlie Kirk was a MAGA conservative, they’d had it. Many of these station owners, these local stations, are not owned directly by ABC. They’re owned by local television networks or by a consortium like Sinclair.
Sinclair Broadcasting happens to be politically conservative in its orientation. There have been longtime rumors of Sinclair trying to launch its own form of Fox News, essentially with its own lineup. So it is perfectly plausible that Sinclair looked at what Jimmy Kimmel said and felt, “You know what? We’re done. We’re not interested anymore.”
What also happened is that the local affiliates went to ABC. They said, “We don’t want him on the air.” And ABC responded by basically saying, “If half of our affiliates don’t want you on the air, we’re just going to suspend your show because what else are we going to do? You have to provide them with some programming.”
Sinclair announced it would yank “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its stations until the host apologized directly to Charlie Kirk’s family and also donated to TPUSA, which, of course, was never going to happen. The company vowed not to return Kimmel’s show “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”
Apparently, Jimmy Kimmel had been planning to double down on his remarks.The reason he was abruptly pulled is because he was planning on doing another monologue the next night where he ripped into MAGA.
According to the New York Post:
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel said he was unwilling to apologize for his remarks that blamed MAGA supporters for killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk — and said he was going to double down on attacking President Trump’s backers before he was yanked from the air, according to new reports. Kimmel learned in a phone call from top Disney exec Dana Walden on Wednesday afternoon that his show was being removed indefinitely, Deadline reported, citing sources. During the call, Kimmel reportedly refused to comply with calls from critics and the owners of dozens of ABC affiliate stations for him to apologize.
Kimmel felt his remarks required no apologies, another source told The Hollywood Reporter. The “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host also claimed that he was planning to call out his critics for the latest attack on him, all while trying to clarify his comments about Kirk’s death. … Disney, however, felt that if Kimmel had doubled down on his MAGA comments, the company would have been forced to make a more drastic decision than simply suspending the show, sources told Deadline.
From that fact pattern, it appears that the reason Kimmel was taken off the air is because of organic outrage by viewers, which filtered up to affiliates, and those affiliates went to Disney and ABC. And they said, “We are not interested in having Jimmy Kimmel on.” And Kimmel responded by saying, “I’m going to double down and attack your viewers.”
No tears for Jimmy Kimmel.
But the Left has decided that this is the greatest assault on free speech in American history, which is totally crazy considering a man was shot to death for doing free speech one week ago, and they seem to care much more about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air than Charlie Kirk being murdered live on TV.
Jon Stewart did a special weekday break-in on The Daily Show. Of course, he did no such thing last week after Charlie was killed. No special episode about the importance of free speech after a person he disagreed with was shot to death in front of 3,000 people and countless others on the internet. No break-in for that.
But when his friend Jimmy Kimmel gets suspended from the airwaves, he does a break-in. He did a 23-minute monologue suggesting that the State was going to come after everybody on the Left.
Now, one thing I noticed about Jon Stewart is that he is not under that threat. If he thought he was actually under that threat, he wouldn’t have done this particular lecture.
So he showed up, and his shtick was that the background had been made up to look like a sort of Trumpian Mar-a-Lago. He was wearing a jacket and a red tie to mimic Trump, and a flag pin, so he could claim that he was operating under fear.
Jon Stewart is not operating under fear. Let’s be real. These were crocodile tears. He was not operating under the assumption that his free speech life is over in the United States.
Stephen Colbert then came out and said, “We are all Jimmy Kimmel.” What he really meant was, “I am Jimmy Kimmel.” Even if it turns out Kimmel was taken off the air because of FCC pressure — which I think is very, very doubtful — Stephen Colbert was not taken off the air because of Trump administration pressure. Paramount chief Shari Redstone pointed out that Stephen Colbert’s cancellation had literally nothing to do with anything government-related. He was taken off because he sucked at his job and cost too much money.
Comedian Marc Maron hyperventilated, “This is government censorship. This is the Trump administration coming after people who speak out against him. This is the end of it. If you have any concern or belief in real freedom or the Constitution and free speech, this is it. This is the deciding moment. This is what authoritarianism looks like right now in this country. It’s happening.”
Oh my God, you can hear the jackboots at the door.
David Letterman emerged from his house in the woods — where I assume he’s writing Unabomber journals — to go to the vaunted Atlantic Festival to talk about how this is a criminal and authoritarian administration.
Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut, who for some weird reason believes that he is going to run for president, said Kimmel’s suspension was about Trump silencing his political opponents. He actually said the people should take to the streets, that there should basically be giant protests in favor of Jimmy Kimmel.
After spending 60 years using the FCC to crack down on its own political opposition, it is hilarious to see the Left protesting about Kimmel’s suspension.
For a solid couple of decades, Democrats were quite authoritarian in their approach to free speech. We all remember the Woke revolutions, where if you didn’t post a black square, you were in danger of losing your job. We all remember Barack Obama using the law to spy on James Rosen, the Associated Press journalist. We remember Joe Biden using the power of the government to crack down on major social media companies in order to get them to mirror his political priorities. We all remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calling for more censorship.
The Left is crying about Kimmel and free speech.
It’s been hardly more than a week since America lost Charlie.
