Even Republicans Defend Kimmel After Controversy

Jimmy Kimmel is back on ABC after a suspension that sparked a nationwide debate over free speech. According to the New York Times, the late night host opened his return Tuesday night with a mix of humor, defiance and emotion. And I saw it that way, too. I watched it as well. Kimmel admitted his earlier comments about Charlie Kirk's murder were ill timed or unclear or maybe both. But he stressed, it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. His sharpest words were directed at the government regulator, who suggested ABC could be punished. Over his remarks, Kimmel declared a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn't like is anti American. He also thanked conservative senators, including Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell for defending his right to speak. The show featured a cameo by Robert De Niro mocking the fcc, and the audience frequently cheered as Kimmel held back tears. We what's important, he said, is that we live in a country that allows us to have a show like this. What's the real message here? American democracy is not completely dead. Not everyone has rolled over and just given up. Americans spoke out. They spoke out economically by canceling their subscription to Disney. They spoke out politically by calming their representatives. And they spoke out across the political spectrum. It wasn't just liberals and Democrats upset. It was conservatives like Ted Cruz saying, this is crazy. This is un American. You can't silence a comedian because he makes a joke that hurts your feelings. Let's go a little bit deeper here of anything that has given me a sense of uplift, a sense of being happy about the prospects of our nation's future. In the last nine months, this goes to the head of the list. We live in a time when we are seeing a constant erosion of democratic principles. I mean, that little D democracy principles. We're seeing an erosion of constitutional principles because every day we have an authoritarian in the White House and he gets to do whatever he wants because there is a Supreme Court that has given up its duties of giving fair, unbiased legal renderings instead have decided they want to be a henchman and hench women to this dictator. Perhaps it's fear out of their own for their own physical safety. Why they do that, I don't know. We live in a time when the Congress, at least the dominant party controlling Congress, has decided to roll over, play dead, and say, hey, we're not really members of Congress anymore. We're here to be lap dogs. Whatever you want. You want to take all of our powers away, you want to ignore laws we pass, be my guest. That is the message of Congress. And finally it looks like dear Leader has gone too far. Now a lot of people, myself included, thought, you know, the tariff thing is too far because the Constitution legislation clearly gives power to the Congress to make tariffs and to certainly approve them and ratify them. Not for the President to just do whatever he wants any time of day or night. That didn't seem to bother that many people. Unfortunately, they're just trying to fire people from the Federal Reserve. Didn't seem to get people agitated. There's just been countless scandals. Quasi having his own director of Homeland Security get caught with bags of cash in bribes. No one even talks about that. So this president has had dozens, if not hundreds of controversies that in any other presidential administration, Democrat, Republican Green Party would be such a consuming issue that impeachment proceedings would start. It would be the only thing anyone talks about. And they've all just sort of blown away in this administrative here. Finally there was a fight. And this time at least as of today, I'm recording this at 8:55am Eastern Time, Wednesday, September 24th. As of right now, the people who pushed back have won. The Hollywood stars who have their own works appear on abc. They fought. They feel like they want all the stand up comedians in the world. Anyone who believes in free speech, and that includes ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, it includes conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro have all rightly noted that it's profoundly un American to have big government telling people and TV networks you got to get rid of that comedian. Now there's been a big push by people who simply take talking points from the Sean Hannity's of the world to say, oh, so you weren't upset when Tucker Carlson got fired and now you're being hypocrites and he was fired. Jimmy Kimmel was fired from low ratings and it's a private sector business so they should be able to. Well, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Let's isolate one at a time. Nobody in the federal government, he didn't see Joe Biden or Obama saying to Rupert Murdoch, you must fire Tucker Carlson because he criticized Rupert Murdoch, made a decision because he had to spend about a billion dollars covering up for the lies Tucker Carlson willfully put out in the world trying to proclaim that Trump actually won the election and that the voting machines were fraudulent. Absolute despicable lies found to be lies in a court of law. And Fox News was fined close to a billion dollars. So there's absolute. And no one in the federal government was demanding that Tucker Carlson be fired for making a joke or for criticizing a Democrat Jimmy Kimmel was not fired because his late ratings were low. Jimmy Kimmel was suspended because ABC saw the head of the Federal Communications Commission, the person who controls their licenses to broadcast, in other words, controls 100% their financial destiny. Someone who can put them out of business at a moment's notice, basically told them to get rid of him. That's why they did it. And fortunately enough people spoke up and got Disney to decide. You know what? It's going to be more painful to us in the long run if we completely discredit ourselves in the eyes of consumers, public, all the creators, all the movie stars, all the actors, all the directors, all the producers. If we so discredit ourselves in their eyes and they see us as just complete complicit stooges of this administration, that's going to be more painful in the long run. So they did in fact switch course. So I want to commend abc. A lot of people complaining about how awful ABC is, how awful Bob Iger is. Is he a profile of courage? No. But the whole point of lobbying for change, asking for change, suggesting change, is that when someone does it, you say, great, that's what I wanted you to do. So let's take a moment and thank Bob Iger for reversing course. He's the CEO of the parent company that made this decision. They decided, okay, we are going to do the right thing. Right, not just in terms of free speech and the Constitution, but right for their business too. Short term it may be painful. Short term it may be that the federal government and Brendan Carr, the fcc, tries to put ABC out of business. But if we see anything like the backlash we've seen in the last few days, that could be the thing that ultimately topples this administration. And I don't mean they're going to be run out of town on a rail or impeached. That's not what I'm talking about. But right now, Trump is in a very precarious position. He's trying to consolidate power and become a true authoritarian, be able to cancel elections and be president for life, which he jokes about, haha, but not really. The thing that's holding him back is he's profoundly unpopular. His approval ratings have dipped to 37%. Now, a lot has been made over the years of how he is really trying to model himself after Putin, after various dictators in Turkey and in Hungary. But there's a huge difference. Putin, Orban, earlier in their career when they first took power, had approval ratings of above 50%. Donald Trump had approval ratings above 50% for about five minutes in his first week during that honeymoon period. Ever since, he's gone down to 42%. And now he's in the high 30s, which is a very, very difficult place for a politician to be because then nobody's afraid of you. And that's the big problem. So that's why many fear that Trump is taking so many. He's taking so many actions right now because he realizes he can't survive a midterm election. If he doesn't consolidate power now, he'll never get anything done again. His entire presidency will be consumed with investigations, rightful investigations, and impeachment proceedings. So that's why you're seeing such aggressive actions now. And it's why it's so important for Americans to do what they did in this whole Jimmy Kimmel fiasco, which is to speak out. I want you to speak out, too. If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, you can share them right here. If you're watching us live. And we are broadcasting Today live on YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Twitch, Facebook, and on a separate feed to our friends on Twitter TikTok, we're happy you're here. And we do have some comments coming in. Michael says, I'm afraid that this leads to civil war. Not tomorrow, but sooner than later. The lack of resistance, the passiveness of the Democrats and the cold actions police and other officials show in the public, it reminds me a lot of the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt described it. I think you're right on target, Michael. The only thing I would quibble with you is this whole Jimmy Kimmel thing activated people for once, not just Democrats, but centrist liberals, progressives, and honest conservatives were not passive. They stood up, they spoke out, and they delivered a strong, strong message. And corporate America listened. Bob Iger listened, and he did an about face in a way that I think is quite positive. So that's good news. All right, Michael, thanks for stopping by. And if you're watching this on demand or listening to it on any, any of the hundred or so podcasting platforms, thanks for listening.