Long before Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show was pulled indefinitely by ABC on Wednesday, the podcast world — particularly in the so-called manosphere — was awash in debate about free speech, cancel culture and where the lines are drawn between humor and hate speech.
In episodes devoted to the subject, many podcasters in that realm, and in conservative circles, were united in arguing that Mr. Kimmel had spread false information on his Monday telecast when he said of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing Mr. Kirk, that conservatives were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The reactions from the podcast hosts varied widely, however, when it came to the influence of the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, who suggested in an interview hours before ABC’s announcement that the regulatory agency might take action against the network because of the hosts’s remarks.
Supporting the Suspension
Stephen K. Bannon, the political strategist and host of “Bannon’s War Room”: “I love hearing these people squeal,” he said on Thursday, referring to the critics of the suspension, “because people are contacting me saying, ‘Hey, can you get on here to debate about the First Amendment?’ We ain’t debating anything. We’re taking action.”
Mr. Bannon went on to say that Mr. Kimmel was shut down because he had smeared the MAGA movement and “denigrated the memory of Charlie Kirk by lying like he does all the time.”
He also made it clear that he believed that CBS’s decision to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and ABC’s suspension of Mr. Kimmel’s show were part of a larger plan to rid the broadcast world of its late night hosts. “Two down, two to go,” he said, not bothering to name the hosts of “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” both on NBC.
“Now we have a scalp in Jimmy Kimmel,” Mr. Bannon added. “And there are gonna be many, many, many more scalps.”
“The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show”: In a lengthy discussion of the issue, Mr. Travis brought up Roseanne Barr, whom ABC fired from the sitcom “Roseanne” in 2018 (it was later restarted as “The Conners”) after she had made racist remarks on Twitter about Valerie Jarrett, a former adviser to President Obama; and the actress Gina Carano, who was dropped from the cast of the Disney Plus show “The Mandalorian” after she made comments on social media implying that being a Republican in 2021 was like being Jewish during the Holocaust.
“When you create a culture where someone can be fired when they say something that is considered offensive, you have created the standards by which your own stars can also be fired,” Mr. Travis said. “And, to me, if you didn’t say a word about Roseanne, and you didn’t say a word about Gina Carano, I don’t understand how you think you have the moral high horse or legitimacy to suddenly ride in and say, ‘Oh my goodness, look at what they’re doing to Jimmy Kimmel.’”
In the second hour of Mr. Travis’s show, Eric Trump called in with the suggestion that ABC’s suspension of Mr. Kimmel was unrelated to any governmental interference. “Listen, the guy has been a jerk,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Kimmel. “He hasn’t been funny. But, honestly, I think the network used this as a way to get him out based on, you know, bad ratings.”
“Louder With Crowder”: Steven Crowder emphasized that Mr. Kimmel was being “voluntarily suspended by a private company” and said he did not feel bad about that.
“The Michael Knowles Show”: Mr. Knowles called ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live” a “great move.” He pushed for further intervention by the F.C.C., acknowledging that his stance would cause him trouble with libertarians and “squishy types.”
“The joke in poor taste is a little bit of a red herring” he said. “It’s the lies that we’re talking about here, because these news networks are not merely private corporations. These news networks are licensed broadcasters. They require licenses from the government. They have a purpose, which is, in the case of news, to tell the truth, to inform the public.”
Critical of the Suspension
“Flagrant,” hosted by Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh: Mr. Singh expressed reservations about the suspension. Speaking with a pair of regulars on the show, Alexx Media and Mark Gagnon, for a 15-minute segment added to the main episode, he described ABC’s move as “a big attack on free speech.”
Mr. Singh added: “It is funny to watch right wing people just become left wing people.”
“In terms of censorship, freedom of speech is more under attack now, honestly, than I think it has ever been,” he said. After asking the other men if he was being hyperbolic, he got some pushback, with all of them agreeing that Mr. Kimmel should not have said what he said.
“Charlie Kirk should have been allowed to say the things we didn’t like,” Mr. Singh said. “Jimmy Kimmel should be allowed to say the things we didn’t like. That’s just what America is.”
“Real Coffee,” hosted by Scott Adams, the cartoonist and political commentator: Mr. Adams flatly said: “I’m on Jimmy Kimmel’s side.”
In his remarks, Mr. Adams referred to his own career history. In 2023, he posted a YouTube video in which he called Black Americans a “hate group” and said that white people should stay away from them. In the backlash that followed, he was dropped by the company that syndicated his “Dilbert” comic strip, and a planned book was canceled by its publisher.
“Would I like some revenge?” Mr. Adams said in his podcast on Thursday. “Yes. Yes, I would enjoy that. But that doesn’t mean I get it. That doesn’t mean I should pursue it. Doesn’t mean the world’s a better place if it happens.”
He added: “Do I think I should have been canceled? Nope. Do I think Roseanne should have been canceled? Nope. And I’m not going to change my mind because it’s Jimmy Kimmel.”
A Complicated Reaction
“The Ben Shapiro Show”: Mr. Shapiro celebrated Mr. Kimmel’s change in fortune, repeatedly discussing how much he disliked the host and his late-night program — but he also took a critical look at how things played out and what that could lead to in the future.
“I do not want the F.C.C. in the business of telling local affiliates that their licenses will be removed if they broadcast material that the F.C.C. deems to be informationally false,” he said. “Why? Because one day the shoe will be on the other foot.”
Mr. Shapiro added that there should be a high bar for the F.C.C. to intervene over false information: “I’m just telling you, if Democrats win the presidency and you got a Democrat in charge of the F.C.C. — you got Adam Schiff in charge of the F.C.C. — you know which affiliates are going to get threatened? All of the Fox affiliates. You know that’s going to happen.”
Benjamin Hoffman is a senior editor who writes, assigns and edits stories primarily on the intersection between sports, lifestyle and culture.
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