A week after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air for saying the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and trying to “score political points from it,” the network brought the show back. A win, sure—but also a cautionary tale.
Kimmel’s suspension wasn’t a response to an audience backlash to the comments. Advertisers weren’t threatening to bolt. And I highly doubt ABC was caught off guard. I know firsthand how network lawyers comb through every word of a script several times before it airs. If they objected, it never would have made it to your TV.
This happened because President Donald Trump is attempting to silence his critics, especially influential critics with big platforms—even if wielding his power to do so violates the Constitution, according to legal scholars. Kimmel’s reinstatement doesn’t change the fact that the government interference was real, and the network caved, albeit temporarily, when it was threatened.
The crackdown is part of a broader scheme. Over the past several decades, corporate media companies have gobbled up smaller media companies so they can control the information landscape and thus all the profits. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has to approve many of those mergers—and Trump stacked the FCC with his supporters. Cue Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, who publicly threatened Disney with consequences if it didn’t “take action” against Kimmel. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” said Carr of Disney. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
That is not cancel culture. It’s state censorship.
As the story unfolded, comic after comic offered support for Jimmy. But there was an eerie silence from the self-proclaimed free speech warriors like Dave Chappelle and Andrew Schultz. It took Joe Rogan nearly a week to address it. These guys will talk for hours about how “woke mobs” are destroying comedy by policing speech, but when the actual President of the United States and the FCC strong-arm a network over a late-night monologue, suddenly it’s crickets. Free speech, it seems, only matters when you’re punching down.
I’ve known Jimmy a long time—I was a producer on the pilot of “The Man Show” in 1999. Yes, me, the loudass feminist. I’ve never been shocked when I didn’t get booked at a club or was cancelled from gigs because of what I dared mention on stage: abortion, homophobia, sexism, racism, fascism, really any of the ‘isms or the ‘phobias. As frustrating and sometimes maddening as it is, I know the difference between clubs not booking me or audiences deciding they don’t like my material and the government blocking my right to tell those jokes.
Jimmy’s quick return is not proof of corporate backbone—massive station groups Sinclair and NexStar are still refusing to air the show. What it does reiterate is the vulnerability of our freedoms. Disney blinked once and could just as easily blink again.
A parent company like Disney’s investment in free speech has one driving economic principle: “Does it make us money?” When I perform as a comedian, I speak full-throated about abortion, audiences can boo, boycott, or bail—that’s the free market of ideas. I cultivate my own audience, and I book theaters that align with my values. If, after all that, I still can’t fill a room or get heckled—I live with the results.
But here’s the crucial line: when the government threatens media outlets with regulatory punishment unless they silence dissent—that’s not “the marketplace.” That’s authoritarianism.
And Carr’s hypocrisy makes it even more galling. In 2018, during an FCC oversight hearing, Carr told Senator Maggie Hassan, “The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage strong, robust—perhaps rough—discourse. My job is to act consistent with the First Amendment in every single thing I do.” Fast-forward to today, and he’s using his position to muzzle a comedian. So which is it, Brendan?
Late-night stars are getting the attention and the headlines, but it doesn’t stop there. Vice President JD Vance has literally urged Americans to report neighbors and colleagues who criticized Kirk—even if those criticisms were just Kirk’s own words repeated back. “Call them out, and hell, call their employer,” said Vance, conflating criticising Kirk with celebrating his death.
That’s making Macarthyism great again.
You wouldn’t know it by the way this administration behaves, but the courts have been clear on the First Amendment for decades. In Rankin v. McPherson (1987), the U.S. Supreme Court said a government employee who joked she hoped Reagan’s would-be assassin succeeded couldn’t be fired. In Hustler v. Falwell (1988), the Court unanimously ruled that parody of public figures, no matter how outrageous, is protected. Free speech covers the jokes, the satire, the parodies—even the dumb, crass, or offensive ones. Our constitutional protections exist for this exact moment—for when the government tries to muzzle the people who challenge it.
No one has a right to a Netflix special or a network desk. If you can’t build a reliable fan base and they cancel you—that’s not censorship. But being suspended because the President’s regulator leaned on your bosses? That’s the very definition.
Authoritarians historically come for the comics first, and most recently under Putin, satirist Idrak Mirzalizade was jailed and deported for mocking Russian housing. And in Egypt, Bassem Youssef—dubbed the “Jon Stewart of the Arab world”—was forced off the air and into exile after satirizing leadership. Authoritarians are attacking these folks first because laughter is power.
The reason you see so many comedians banding together right now is that we understand that none of us are safe, even those who have an act that isn’t “political.” When Stephen Colbert was targeted earlier this year, I warned this wasn’t a one-off. Now they’ve come for Jimmy. There is no predicting what joke might set off this particular malignant narcissist in chief, so really, who’s to say who is next? The answer is all of us. Any of us.
Even with Jimmy back, the lesson is clear: corporate media will never be our defenders of free speech. That burden falls on us—comics, audiences, citizens. This is not the time to keep your head down and wait it out. It’s time to speak up for your freedom of speech. If you’ve got truth to tell, find a way to tell it.
People look to comedians as truth-tellers and it’s our responsibility to show people how to defend not just your voice but their own. But it only works if we refuse to be silent.
The good news? Laughter is what gets us through dark times, and audiences won’t let the government steal it.
If the First Amendment is going to survive, it’ll be because we built and defended our own stages, our own platforms, and our own audiences. It’ll be because the American people won’t let our freedoms be taken away.
The post Jimmy Kimmel is Back. But Corporate Media Won’t Save Free Speech appeared first on TIME.
