‘America Is a Less Free Place’: Brian Stelter Aghast at ABC’s ‘Chilling’ Decision to Suspend ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’
A stunned Brian Stelter said ABC’s sudden decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live! over comments Jimmy Kimmel made about the alleged assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk makes the country “less free.”
During Monday’s edition of the show, Kimmel claimed that Tyler Robinson, who was charged on Tuesday with killing Kirk, was a conservative. According to the charging documents, Robinson was left of center and had accused Kirk of spreading hate.
“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,” Kimmel said on the show.
ABC’s announcement to suspend Kimmel’s show came almost immediately after Nexstar, which owns dozens of ABC stations across the country, said it would no longer air the program.
Last month, President Donald Trump said that Kimmel and Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon would be canceled “next.”
The announcements came just hours after Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr threatened ABC and its parent company Disney over Kimmel’s “concerted effort to lie to the American people.”
Stelter appeared on Wednesday’s OutFront shortly after Kimmel was suspended.
“This was very sudden this afternoon after Carr spoke out on that far-right podcast,” Stelter said. “Then, some stations that are owned by other companies but affiliated with ABC started to complain to ABC. We know one of them, Nexstar, which has about two dozen stations with the ABC logo and all the ABC programming. Nexstar publicly announced that they were going to drop Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Within a matter of minutes. We heard from Disney that the show was being pulled altogether.”
Stelter went on to say that “other station owners were probably also getting scared,” and said the U.S. is now “less free” and this will have “a chilling effect”:
But even though we’re talking about comedy, this is so serious. America is a less free place if late-night comedians cannot do and say what they want. Of course, they can be tuned out. People can change the channel. That’s how we vote. That’s how we have our say in America. But this really does have a chilling effect across the American media.
Stelter added, “I’ve heard from Brendan Carr in the past few minutes. He’s very pleased about Nexstar deciding to preempt the show. He has not officially reacted to ABC’s decision yet, but when I told him about ABC’s decision to go ahead, and basically, this is a cancellation unless the show ever comes back, he did send me a GIF. He sent me a celebratory meme as his reaction.”
Last month, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook praised the Trump administration after the company announced it was acquiring rival TEGNA as part of a $6.2 billion deal, which is pending approval from Carr’s FCC.
In July, CBS canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert just weeks after Paramount, the network’s parent company, paidTrump $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit. Less than two weeks after Colbert’s cancellation, the FCC approved Paramount’s bid to merge with Skydance.
Watch above via CNN.
