President Barack Obama urged media companies to stop capitulating to President Donald Trump on Thursday after Jimmy Kimmel was indefinitely suspended by ABC the day prior.
“After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama shared on X.
He added in a follow-up tweet, “This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”
Obama’s comments are in stark contrast to the tone of Trump’s own, which he shared shortly after news broke of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” being pre-empted.
“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he shared on Truth Social. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”
Indeed, Disney and ABC decided to suspend the late night host on Wednesday after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to take action against the network and its affiliated stations following Kimmel’s Monday comments about Charlie Kirk’s accused shooter.
“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,” Kimmel said in his Monday monologue, notably after authorities in Utah provided additional information about accused shooter Tyler Robinson that suggested the opposite.
Carr then celebrated the suspension on Fox News later on Wednesday (“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has not been canceled, however).
“President Trump ran directly at these legacy broadcast outlets and he exposed them to these market forces, and a lot of these affiliate groups said, ‘We’re tired of carrying this stuff,’” he told Sean Hannity. “Late night shows, something’s gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause — from clap lines to applause lines — they went from being court jesters that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology.”
