For several days after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel’s show following pressure from the Trump administration, there was no public reaction from Joe Rogan, the influential podcaster who has made free speech a central part of his brand and who endorsed President Trump last year.
But Mr. Rogan, who attributed his initial silence on the subject to an elk-hunting trip in the mountains with limited internet service, weighed in through an episode of a podcast that was released on Tuesday. “I definitely don’t think that the government should be involved, ever, in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue,” he said.
Mr. Rogan went on to address the broadcasters that have faced decisions over whether to continue airing Mr. Kimmel’s show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” as well as the glee some conservatives have expressed over the show’s suspension.
“The companies, if they’re being pressured by the government — so if that’s real — and if people on the right are like, ‘Yeah, go get ’em,’ oh, my God, you’re crazy,” Mr. Rogan said. “You’re crazy for supporting this. Because this will be used on you.”
“You don’t think that the [expletive] globalist lizard people who run the world are sitting here going: ‘Great, what do we got — three years? We’ll wait this out. We’ll wait this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let them say the government should be involved in censoring people’s speech.’ ”
By the time the podcast was released, ABC had announced that Mr. Kimmel would return to its airwaves on Tuesday night, though boycotts from two major owners of local stations complicated the outlook for the program.
ABC took Mr. Kimmel’s show off the air last week after his remarks about the motivations of the man accused of killing the conservative activist Charlie Kirk caused a furor on the right. Mr. Kimmel said on his Sept. 15 show that “the MAGA gang” was trying to characterize the accused shooter “as anything other than one of them.”
Right-wing activists complained that the comments had mischaracterized what was known of the politics of the accused shooter, who officials said had appeared to shift to the left in his views.
In the wake of those comments, Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, appeared to threaten ABC and its affiliates with regulatory action.
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, said on a podcast. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.”
Mr. Rogan said in the podcast clip that Mr. Kimmel’s comment about the accused shooter’s political leanings “wasn’t accurate,” but suggested that it was part of a setup to a “very funny” joke about the way Mr. Trump was reacting to Mr. Kirk’s killing.
“The Joe Rogan Experience” is often listed as the top streamed podcast in the country. In 2022, several prominent artists removed their work from Spotify, which had reached a lucrative deal with Mr. Rogan, to protest his podcast, which they said spread misinformation about the coronavirus. The chief executive of Spotify, Daniel Ek, wrote in a public letter at the time that “we have a critical role to play in supporting creator expression while balancing it with the safety of our users.”
Although Mr. Rogan endorsed Mr. Trump in the 2024 election, he has broken with him at times during his second term. He criticized the Trump administration this year for its immigration tactics and accused it of trying to “gaslight” the public on the Jeffrey Epstein case. He endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020.
In the podcast clip, Mr. Rogan praised Mr. Kimmel as a “good guy.” But he also sprinkled in some criticism of Mr. Kimmel’s jokes, including one about unvaccinated people and another celebrating Tucker Carlson’s firing from Fox News.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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