How Donald Trump’s Culture-Wars Playbook Felled Jimmy Kimmel

On Wednesday, bowing to pressure from the Trump Administration, ABC pulled the late-night series “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air. The show, which had run for more than two decades, was shelved indefinitely over a monologue addressing the murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk—one in which Kimmel did not disparage Kirk, nor, indeed, comment on him at all. Instead, he directed his contempt at those eager to exploit the activist’s death: members of “the MAGA gang” who were, he said, “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.” It wasn’t clear whether Kimmel was suggesting that Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s alleged killer, was “one of them,” but his ideological foes pounced on the ambiguous phrasing. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called Kimmel’s words “truly sick” and threatened retaliation through his agency. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said, on a right-wing podcast. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.”

The story of Kimmel’s suspension isn’t a straightforward one. Bob Iger, the C.E.O. of Disney, which owns ABC, and Dana Walden, the studio’s TV chief, chose to put the show on ice after two major local-station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, refused to air it. (Sinclair, a conservative conglomerate, went so far as to demand that the host apologize to Kirk’s family and make a donation to his organization, Turning Point USA.) Kimmel was reportedly prepared to address the furor on air; Disney executives pulled the show instead. Donald Trump, who’d called for ABC to drop Kimmel as far back as 2018, crowed, inaccurately, on Truth Social that it had been “CANCELLED,” and suggested that Kimmel’s fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers should be ousted, too. An emboldened Carr indicated that he would train his sights on ABC’s daytime talk show “The View”—another thorn in Trump’s side—next.

The monologue that led to Kimmel’s involuntary hiatus was thoroughly unexceptional for the show. In fact, it was a neat encapsulation of his comedic persona: that of a regular guy whose political impulses are rooted in common sense. After decrying the conduct of the “MAGA gang,” he mocked Trump’s response to a reporter’s question about Kirk, which was to immediately change the subject to the White House’s ballroom renovations. (“He’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel joked. He added, more seriously, “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”) Prior to his monologue, the comedian had issued a statement on social media that exhibited the populist decency he’s become known for: “Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Kimmel’s censorship comes just two months after the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” under similar duress, but the differences between the two incidents are significant. Colbert got nearly a year’s notice before the end of his show, giving him time to conclude things on his own terms. In contrast, the abruptness of Kimmel’s suspension has sent shock waves throughout Hollywood. His bro-y mode of political comedy has made him a pillar at ABC, where he’s hosted everything from game shows to the Oscars. Over the past several weeks, his good-guy instincts have been seen even in his Emmy campaign—which was not for his own nominated series but for Colbert’s.

By now, it’s clear that the Trump Administration intends to radically reshape America. Cultural institutions are very much a part of that agenda, which has seen a deformation of the Kennedy Center, a forced resignation at the National Portrait Gallery, and censorship at the Smithsonian. The President formed strategic alliances with the world’s two richest men, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison (though his relationship with the former has since fractured spectacularly). Musk remade the site formerly known as Twitter in his own image; Ellison is now in talks to control both TikTok and Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN and HBO. It was inevitable that the Administration would come for television—by all accounts Trump’s favorite medium. During his first term in office, some critics turned on late-night hosts, deriding the frequency of “clapter” and their tendency to preach to the choir. Even the catharsis that they had to offer came under suspicion; perhaps the nightly dissipation of outrage also sapped political will. But if liberal late night didn’t affect much in the way of the real world, it still got under the President’s thin skin.

What a self-own. Trump already had one over on resistance comedians; his absurdities make him famously “satire-proof,” and he can be pretty funny himself, especially when it comes to insult comedy. (“Meatball Ron,” his nickname for his onetime rival Ron DeSantis, is still a perfect put-down.) But the President is surrounded by a more sycophantic set this time around, and seems more brittle in the face of dissent. Lately, he’s responded to barbs by shutting down free speech entirely—once again laying bare the right’s highly selective defense of that ideal.