Donald Trump was confronted about free speech on Thursday, one day after comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended following threats from the president’s Federal Communications Commission chair.
Trump was standing alongside British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for their joint press conference when he was asked about free speech by a British reporter.
“Your vice president, Vance, said that free speech was under attack in the UK. Do you agree with him, and the Prime Minister, we saw the dismissal of a very well-known chat show host in America last night, Mr. Kimmel. Is free speech more under attack in Britain or America?” the reporter asked.
The question came after Vance criticized Europe over free speech in February, but the Trump administration is now facing accusations of working to stifle free speech in the U.S.
The president was quick to attack Kimmel, who has been critical of him.
“Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else,” Trump claimed. “He said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.”
ABC suspended Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely on Wednesday after a comment he made about Kirk, a right-wing activist murdered last week, and how the president was responding to the death.
After Kirk’s shooting, Kimmel released condolences to his family in a statement and called the shooting “horrible and monstrous.” But in Monday’s show, he said, “Many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk,” and slammed Trump’s own comment when asked about it.
Right before the show was yanked on Wednesday, Trump’s FCC Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s comments “sick” on a right-wing podcast and suggested his agency had a case for holding Kimmel, ABC, and its parent company accountable.
The move by ABC came after Nexstar, which operates ABC-affiliates, said it would pull the show. While there has been no direct link made, Nexstar is working to acquire Tegna, a $6 billion deal that would require approval from the FCC, raising further questions.
It comes after CBS canceled the late-night show of comedian Stephen Colbert, another fierce Trump critic, earlier this year, as Paramount was also working toward a merger.
The president celebrated Kimmel’s suspension in a social media post late Wednesday while traveling in the UK and called for NBC’s late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers to be fired.
But free speech advocates and Trump critics of the president have sounded the alarm after ABC pulled the plug on Kimmel.
Just before Trump’s press conference on Thursday, former President Obama posted that after years of complaining about cancel culture, “the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.”
After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like. https://t.co/uts7JpJZzN
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 18, 2025
At his press conference, Trump also slammed Kimmel as “not a talented person” and claimed he had “very bad ratings.”
“You could call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent,” Trump argued.
In response, Starmer took a diplomatic approach. He called the murder of Kirk shocking.
“This country’s had free speech for a very very long time. It is part of who we are as a country, and it is the values that we fought for. We fought for it during the Second World War alongside each other, so we need no reminding of the importance of free speech in this country,” Starmer said.
Amid growing concern over the circumstances surrounding the suspension of Kimmel’s show, Vance’s own past comments on free speech have been posted across social media pointing out the apparent hypocrisy.
“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” Vance declared on the world stage just months ago.
The post Trump Confronted on Free Speech After Jimmy Kimmel Pulled Off Air appeared first on The Daily Beast.
