Media experts assembled by CNN were incredibly concerned about what the indefinite removal of Jimmy Kimmel Live from ABC’s airwaves means for free speech, with media analyst Brian Stelter telling host Erin Burnett that this decision “really does have a chilling effect across the American media.”
Appearing on Erin Burnett OutFront on Wednesday night, Stelter said, “America is a less free place if late-night comedians cannot do and say what they want. Of course they can be tuned out. People can change the channel. That‘s how we vote. That‘s how we have our say in America.”
Kimmel’s late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled indefinitely after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license as a result of what he argued was Kimmel playing into a “narrative” that Charlie Kirk’s suspected shooter was a “MAGA or Republican motivated person.”
What Kimmel actually said in his Monday night monologue was, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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.”
Stelter called the move an example of what could be considered an empty threat, telling Burnett, “It‘s all about public pressure. You know, actually revoking FCC licenses is extremely difficult. I wrote about this last fall when candidate Donald Trump was talking on the campaign trail about wanting to punish stations by taking away their licenses.”
“Throughout the history of the country, ever since, we‘ve had broadcast television license revocations are extraordinarily rare,” he continued. “Once you‘ve got one, you‘re pretty much guaranteed to keep it. So the threat is not that the FCC is actually going to take away a license. It‘s about the public noise, it‘s about the shame and embarrassment, it‘s about Brendan Carr going on podcasts and embarrassing ABC.”
Former media reporter for The New York Times and author of The War for Late Night Bill Carter echoed these concerns, calling our current moment “a really dangerous time.”
“This is ABC basically saying we can‘t stand up to this, we have to back away, we can‘t stand up to this. And every time this happens, it means the next thing is in the offing. They‘re not going to back off. This means you can‘t say anything without us coming after you. I think they‘re promising that it‘s going to be this way if you don‘t play ball with us. If you criticize us, if you use your airwaves in ways we don‘t like, we have your license and we can take it away,” he said.
CNN entertainment correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister found the news similarly shocking, calling these “unprecedented times” and referring to the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show earlier this year.
“If you had told me a few weeks ago that Stephen Colbert show was no longer going to exist, I would have said you‘re crazy,” she said. “If you had told me yesterday or an hour ago that Jimmy Kimmel Live was going to be pulled off the air indefinitely, I would have said in no world is that going to happen. So we are really in unprecedented times.”
Wagmeister also highlighted the fact that Kimmel is considered the face of ABC, hosting not just his own late-night show but a series of other projects, and the future of those projects is now up in the air. Puck News’ Matt Belloni reported that an ABC source shared that the network currently has no plans to pull Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, which is also hosted by Kimmel.
“It’s almost hard to see a path forward,” Wagmeister said. “It‘s hard to see a world in which President Trump says, sure, I would love for Jimmy Kimmel to come back on the air. I love the guy. I mean, they hate each other‘s guts. Let‘s be honest about that.”
Stelter also revealed that when he asked FCC chair Brendan Carr for comment after news of ABC pulling Kimmel’s show broke, Carr responded with a celebratory GIF.
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
CNN’s senior political correspondent Van Jones called the decision a “red line that has been crossed for our industry.”
Jones told Burnett, “A news organization anywhere in the world has a responsibility to stand up to government bullying, to government censorship. That is what we do. That is why we exist. Not to knuckle under, not to do what we‘re told, but to stand up and to say, listen, if you want to pull these licenses, then we‘re going to go to court and we‘ll be in the court of public opinion.”
“You don‘t get to go on a podcast and set policy for American media, for an American media institution that‘s been around a lot longer than me, you or Donald Trump. This is a this is a red line that has been crossed for our industry, for the first amendment, for the right of people to speak,” he continued. “This is this is not acceptable. if you are going to run a media organization that‘s called a news organization, you have to stand up to government bullying anywhere in the world. and certainly in the United States.”
The post CNN‘s Brian Stelter Warns ‘America Is Less Free’ After Jimmy Kimmel Pulled appeared first on The Daily Beast.
