Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and David Letterman all said on Thursday that they feared the country was sliding toward a dictatorship that was cracking down on free speech after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show following pressure from the Trump administration.
Speaking in a monologue during his daily program, Mr. Colbert said, “Tonight we are all Jimmy Kimmel,” and declared that ABC’s move to “indefinitely” pull Mr. Kimmel’s show off the air amounted to “blatant censorship.”
“With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” Colbert said. “If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive. And clearly they’ve never read the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Kimmel.”
Mr. Stewart’s program opened with a public address announcer introducing “the all-new, government-approved ‘Daily Show’” with its “patriotically obedient host,” Mr. Stewart.
Jimmy Fallon said on “The Tonight Show,” “I don’t know what’s going on. And no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy and I hope he comes back.” He then insisted that he would not be censored, before a voiceover provided more complimentary language over Mr. Fallon’s commentary.
The criticism from some of Mr. Kimmel’s contemporaries capped a day when an industry veteran, David Letterman, issued some of his own.
“You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian, a criminal administration in the Oval Office,” Mr. Letterman said at The Atlantic Festival on Thursday afternoon in Lower Manhattan. “That’s just not how this works.”
ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Mr. Kimmel’s late-night show “indefinitely” after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, criticized remarks Mr. Kimmel had made on the show about the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Mr. Carr suggested that his regulatory agency might take action against ABC affiliates. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead,” he said.
Mr. Carr joined a chorus of conservatives who had accused Mr. Kimmel of misrepresenting the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the man accused in Mr. Kirk’s assassination, during his show on Monday. On the program, Mr. Kimmel had accused Mr. Trump’s supporters of “desperately trying” to paint Mr. Robinson “as anything other than one of them.” Utah officials have said that Mr. Robinson had recently appeared to shift leftward in his views.
The indefinite suspension of the show drew the ire of liberals, who have accused the network of censorship and of bowing to political pressure from the Trump administration.
Mr. Colbert, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Letterman — and to a lesser extent, Mr. Fallon — joined the critics on Thursday.
Mr. Colbert mocked Mr. Carr’s statement about the need to push back on programming thatfalls short of “community values.”
“Well, you know what my community values are, buster?” Mr. Colbert said. “Freedom of speech.”
At one point, Mr. Colbert dusted off the famous “Stephen Colbert” character — a self-obsessed conservative political commentator — he played during the 10-season run of his Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report.”
In the first act of his show, Mr. Stewart took on the role of a humble, pro-government sycophant on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The act went beyond Mr. Kimmel.
“Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation,” Mr. Stewart said.
“Some people would say that,” he reiterated, before a dramatic pause. “Not me though. I think it’s great.”
The remarks were the latest message of solidarity among the fraternity of hosts who have collectively spent decades behind a late-night desk.
In recent months, following the sudden announcement that CBS would cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the current crop of hosts have gone out of their way to support one another. Many spoke out in support of Mr. Colbert on their own programs. In the run-up to the Emmy Awards, Mr. Kimmel went as far as putting up a billboard in Los Angeles declaring, “I’m voting for Stephen” for best talk show. Mr. Colbert eventually won.
But not all of late night is on the same page.
On his Fox News show late Thursday, Greg Gutfeld returned to the topic of Mr. Kimmel, one night after calling him a “clown.”
“While some say it’s an attack on free speech, others believe it’s an excuse to unload Jimmy due to his poor ratings and the cost to keep him on,” he said.
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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