Vice President JD Vance called on Jimmy Kimmel to apologize to Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika following the six-day suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for comments he made about Kirk’s killer which were deemed “offensive” and “insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”
Vance appeared on Thursday’s night episode of Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” and was asked about the late-night host. Laura Ingraham mentioned that the Kimmel had not apologized to Erika Kirk directly and asked if at this point, the sentiment would even matter.
“I think it would matter. I would love for Jimmy Kimmel to apologize to Erika and all the people he slandered,” Vance said. “He is trying to say he told a joke. He didn’t tell a joke. He was accusing right wing America, conservative America of killing Charlie Kirk.”
He continued: “We now know that is false. Charlie Kirk was murdered by a left-wing assassin who was radicalized by some of the rhetoric that we see coming from the far left. When you accuse the people who have been holding prayer vigils, who have been praying about Charlie Kirk, you accuse them of killing Charlie Kirk, when we know it was a left-wing assassin, you are not apologizing for his murder. You are encouraging more of that violence to happen. If we’re going to stop this crazy strain of left-wing violence, we have to be honest about what it is.”
Ingraham also asked Vance his thoughts about the cultural touchstone the Kimmel suspension has become regarding free speech and particularly media censorship. The Fox News host cited celebrity and Democratic outcry against FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s involvement in the matter.
“I would like them to tell me exactly what Brendan Carr did to have Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air,” he said. “Because, number one, is he currently on the air. To the extent that he isn’t in certain stations, it’s because he is not funny and because his ratings are not very good. It is actually — we should let these stations determine whether they want a non-funny comedian.”
To that, Ingraham asked, “Why should the government chime in at all?”
“I think that Brendan Carr put out a couple of tweets or truths, whatever he did,” Vance said. “That does not constitute government collusion. It’s pretty rich coming from the Democrats after years of the Biden administration explicitly demanding the social media company censor. You didn’t hear anything from the Democrats about free speech. Brendan Carr putting out a couple of tweets about speech shuts down Jimmy Kimmel’s free speech rights? That’s preposterous.”
Despite his insistence that Carr did not engage in censorship regarding Kimmel, Vance also took a moment to mention that networks rely on public airways. He added that he was not opposed to having the government look into what they’re allowed to broadcast but said it was not related to the ABC host.
“These broadcast companies, ABC, NBC, CBS, they enjoy the public airwaves because they serve the public interest,” Vance added. “So I actually think that we should be having a conversation about whether these companies are serving the public interest. That’s actually totally separate from the Jimmy Kimmel issue because nothing happened to him.”
You can watch Vance’s full “The Ingraham Angle” interview in the video above.
