While discussing Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from his late night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” at ABC, the “Morning Joe” crew Friday posited that the host’s pause has little do with his remarks about Charlie Kirk and more to do with President Donald Trump trying to silence his critics.
“Donald Trump speaking about how much he hates all these late night shows and they’re all so mean to him, I think that is key that the reason why these shows are being canceled is not because — in the case of Jimmy Kimmel, it’s really not much to do with Charlie Kirk,” said The Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum on Friday’s panel. “It’s because the president wants his critics off the air.”
Watch the MSNBC segment below:
As TheWrap previously reported, Kimmel raised hackles on the right for criticizing the response by the “MAGA gang” to Kirk’s Sept. 10 assassination, implying the shooter might have come from their own camp. That led widespread conservative backlash and a threat by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to take action against ABC and its affiliated stations. First Nexstar, which owns dozens of ABC affiliates, and then ABC parent Disney, quickly followed by pulling Kimmel off the air Wednesday.
After Kimmel’s suspension, Carr once again threatened “The View” on Thursday, saying the morning talk show may no longer be exempt from the commission’s equal opportunity broadcast rules.
On “Morning Joe” Friday, Applebaum went on to say that the actions of Trump’s camp isn’t just another instance of cancel culture, it’s the government abusing its authority.
“What we’re seeing here is something actually different [from cancel culture],” she explained. “This is actually government repression. This is the use of state institutions to influence media companies in their decisions about content. And this is the same way that censorship now works elsewhere in the world.”
Watch the full clip above.
