Laura Ingraham Says FCC Chair Should Have Kept Kimmel Complaints ‘Off Television’ Ahead of Suspension

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham argued on Thursday that Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr should have kept his Jimmy Kimmel complaints off the airwaves ahead of Kimmel’s show getting indefinitely suspended.

Ingraham joined America’s Newsroom on Thursday morning, where she insisted that Kimmel’s suspension is not “a First Amendment issue.” The Fox News host claimed ABC suspending Kimmel’s late-night show following comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder is just “smart business.”

“They are making a business decision, ABC, for now at least,” Ingraham said.

ABC announced on Wednesday that it had indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! The decision followed Nexstar, which owns dozens of ABC affiliate stations across the country, saying it would preempt Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future.” Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns hundreds of stations, also took issue with Kimmel’s Kirk comments, demanding an apology and a donation to Kirk’s family or his Turning Point USA organization.

Ingraham argued on Thursday that the decision to pull Kimmel from the air boils down to local stations not wanting to offend their audiences.

“I agree, he might very well be back on these stations, but they are making a business decision that these comments are going to lose them money,” she said.

Ingraham argued Carr likely should have stayed off of television ahead of Kimmel’s suspension as his comments give the impression that he was pushing for Kimmel to be ousted.

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said on Wednesday about Kimmel, ahead of the suspension. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Ingraham said there are “grounds” to drop Kimmel, but critics are capitalizing on Carr’s comments to tie the suspension directly to the administration.

She said:

I want everyone to understand this. The 1934 Federal Communications Act does require, or allow I should say, the government to cancel broadcast licenses for the old broadcast networks if they determine that the broadcast network fails to serve the public interest. So failure to serve public interest is a grounds in obviously extreme cases for cancelling or revoking a broadcast license. That is a very extreme penalty.

I personally think it would be best if Brendan Carr had just probably stayed off television yesterday and let the market do the work. I think the market is becoming very efficient with far left comedians. I think their audience is shrinking, their influence is very narrow and these station groups were reacting to the audience.

On Monday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel sparked outrage by accusing the “MAGA gang” of doing everything they could to describe 22-year-old Tyler Robinson as “anything other than one of them.” Robinson is facing murder charges over Kirk’s killing last week, and officials, including the Utah governor, have said evidence in the investigation has shown Robinson was “indoctrinated in leftist ideology” leading up to the shooting.

“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 his show.

Watch above via Fox News.