Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) said he’s glad late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel is off the air indefinitely, but he warned that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr’s threat to take action against ABC sounded like something “right out of Goodfellas,” the classic mob movie, and “dangerous as hell.”
“Jimmy Kimmel has mocked me so many times I cannot count. The corporate media, they’re dishonest, they are liars. I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz said on his podcast “Verdict.”
But he warned that Carr’s statement that the FCC could look at “remedies” to pursue if ABC didn’t take action in response to Kimmel’s implication that Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer was a member of the “MAGA gang” was a bad idea.
“No, no, no, no, no. Look, I like Brendan Carr, he’s a good guy, he’s the chairman of the FCC, I work closely with him. But what he said there is dangerous as well,” Cruz said.
Cruz, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, made his comments in response to Carr’s interview with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.
Carr said in that interview that Kimmel’s suggestion that Kirk’s killer was MAGA-aligned would be “really, really sick” and that ABC as a broadcast license-holder needs to keep the public interest in mind.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
“I got to say, that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas.’ That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar, going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said, referring mob-movie classic directed by Martin Scorsese, which was based on real-life events.
“Let me tell you if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media says. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like.’ That will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz warned.
Carr’s comments have drawn sharp criticism from Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), who called the chairman “one of the greatest threats to free speech America has ever seen” after Carr backed the suspension.
Disney and ABC suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely Wednesday after he said on his Monday show that the country “hit some new lows over the weekend” when the “MAGA gang desperately tried to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
Nexstar Media Group announced Wednesday that its affiliate stations would preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live” due to the remarks. ABC followed suit with the suspension shortly after.
Nexstar owns The Hill, NewsNation and the CW.
Nexstar said in statement that it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
Al Weaver contributed.
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