Late night host Jimmy Kimmel will be back over airwaves on ABC Tuesday night, although some local television affiliates still won’t carry Jimmy Kimmel Live! over his comments made last Monday about the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated in Utah Sept. 10.
In Kimmel’s week off the air, some GOP elected officials have broken with the Trump administration over comments made by President Donald Trump’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
“Jimmy Kimmel, I think, originally got canceled because he wasn’t funny, he said something offensive, and his ratings were low,” U.S. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) said Monday. “However, the FCC chairman also made some intimidating comments on a podcast, that was also inappropriate.”
Republican U.S. Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania issued similar comments last week and over the weekend.
“I don’t think the government should intervene in prohibiting anybody from saying what they want, no matter how inappropriate or ugly it is,” Husted told reporters.
Kirk, who was 31, founded Turning Point USA, which pushes for conservative politics at high schools and colleges. Federal and state officials allege he was shot and killed by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, who was arrested two weeks ago and charged last Tuesday.
In an on-air monologue, Kimmel said Trump’s allies were “trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” At that time, investigators had released little about what Robinson’s motive may have been.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr then told conservative commentator Benny Johnson the government could “do this the easy way or the hard way,” insinuating that if ABC did not take action against Kimmel, the government would. The FCC licenses most broadcast stations in the country.
Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group, two major owners of local television stations, threatened to take Kimmel’s show off air indefinitely shortly after. That came before Disney, which owns the ABC network, yanked the show for the week.
Although ABC will return to airing Kimmel’s show Tuesday, Nexstar and Sinclair have each said they still plan to preempt the program. That includes stations in Columbus, Dayton, Youngstown and Steubenville/Wheeling, WV. Both need to get the green light from federal regulators, including the FCC, on mergers and acquisitions.
