John Oliver made a direct plea to Disney’s CEO to tell off Trump with “four key words” in the wake of ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Oliver used his Last Week Tonight monologue on Sunday night to encourage viewers to cancel their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions. He blasted the “laughably weak” reason for pulling Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air on Wednesday, after Kimmel had enraged MAGAworld and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr with his monologue about their reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination last week.
“At some point, you’re going to have to draw a line,” Oliver said directly to Iger. “So I’d argue, why not draw it right here. And when they come to you with stupid, ridiculous demands, picking fights that you know you could win in court, instead of rolling over, why not stand up and use four key words they don’t tend to teach you in business school. Not ‘ok, you’re the boss,’ not ‘whatever you say goes,’ but instead, the only phrase that can only genuinely make a weak bully go away, and that is ‘F— you. Make me.’”
Oliver collected two more Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Scripted Series and Outstanding Writing For a Variety Series last Sunday. Oliver pointed to the coincidental moment where the show’s senior writer, Daniel O’Brien, expressed gratitude in his acceptance speech for “late-night political comedy while that is still a type of show that’s allowed to exist,” while the CBS cameras cut away to Jimmy Kimmel. The following night, Oliver appeared as a guest on Kimmel’s show; the same night of his allegedly offensive monologue.
“Weirdly I was actually a guest on his show that night, and I didn’t even register that comment, and that’s only partly because I wasn’t really paying attention,” Oliver quipped. “Kimmel didn’t denigrate Charlie Kirk or make light of his killing. The worst thing you could say is that he appears to have been wrong about the shooter’s ideology. Which, OK. But he was also pointing out that many on the right seemed desperate to weaponize Kirk’s death, an argument that’s aged pretty well, given, you know, everything that’s happened to Kimmel since.”
Oliver said “it does seem as though some are now willing to weaponize Kirk’s death to do things they’ve been wanting to do for years,” and that Carr’s statements on a podcast that prompted Nexstar and Sinclair affiliates to immediately pre-empt Kimmel offered “pretty clear” threats under “some shamelessly flimsy pretext.”
Oliver was referring to Nexstar’s proposed takeover of Tegna and its 68 TV stations that would require FCC approval to waive its own cap on TV affiliate ownership. Oliver insinuated the company’s desperation to stay in the federal government’s good graces.
“It’s like if someone threw a brick through your window that said, ‘SHUT UP OR ELSE.’ Then followed it up with more clarifying bricks saying, ‘BY OR ELSE, WE MEAN WE WILL HURT YOU PHYSICALLY,’ then, ‘THIS IS THE MAFIA, BY THE WAY,’ followed by, ‘YOU KNOW, LIKE IN GOODFELLAS,’” he joked.
“Basically Brendan Carr said jump, and Nexstar took his d— out of their mouth for just long enough to say ‘How high, exactly?’” Oliver joked, adding that Nexstar claims otherwise. “Now, I should say, Nexstar insists that it acted unilaterally. That they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision, but I will remind you they didn’t need to communicate directly. Carr essentially told them what he wanted to happen on a podcast, then they ‘unilaterally’ decided to do it.”
Oliver said Carr also has gone overboard by stating his intentions “in plain view,” including sending emojis and GIFs from The Office and Jack Nicholson as his official responses to reporters and others seeking comment.
“This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point. And not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse,” he said.
I asked FCC chair @BrendanCarrFCC if he had any new comment now that ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show, and he sent me this GIF pic.twitter.com/ljz60FzHN4
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 17, 2025
Oliver noted that “we are very lucky at this show to be in a different situation,” although he jokingly threw a profanity-laced tempter tantrum at the new rumors that Paramount Skydance, who now owns CBS and have served notice on Stephen Colbert, might try to buy Oliver’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. “Whatever happens to us or our parent company, it should be clear to everyone that the First Amendment is absolutely critical in this country,” he said.
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