Letters from An American – September 17, 2025 (Wednesday) – Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American, September 17, 2025 (Wednesday)

By Heather Cox Richardson, Sep 17, 2025

This evening, John Koblin, Michael M. Grynbaum, and Brooks Barnes of the New York Times reported that ABC was pulling the television show of comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air.

The suspension is allegedly over his comments Monday about the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, although Chris Hayes of All In pointed out that after CBS pulled Stephen Colbert, another political comedian, off the air in July, President Donald Trump told reporters that comedians Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel would be “next. They’re going to be going. I hear they’re going to be going.”

Kimmel has one of the top late-night television shows, attracting younger viewers in the 18-49 year old demographic. He delivers monologues that skewer President Donald J. Trump and the administration. His YouTube channel, which replays his show, has more than twenty million subscribers.

During his monologue on Monday’s show, Kimmel said: “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. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this.”

Kimmel then played a clip of Trump’s response to a reporter who asked how the president was holding up after Kirk’s death. Trump answered: “I think very good. And by the way right there you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about for 150 years and it’s gonna be a beauty.”

On the podcast of right-wing influencer Benny Johnson on Wednesday, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr said that Kimmel’s words were part of a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people” and that the FCC was “going to have remedies that we can look at.” “Frankly, when you see stuff like this,” he said, “I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Carr explained: “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say…’We’re not gonna run Kimmel anymore…because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.'”

The largest operator of ABC affiliates, Nexstar—which needs FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger—said it would stop airing Kimmel’s show from its stations. Then ABC suspended Kimmel’s show.

Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: September 17, 2025 (Wednesday) – by Heather Cox Richardson