From September 17 through September 22, 2025, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and its corporate parent, the Walt Disney Company, suspended production of the late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, following criticism from conservatives and public pressure from Trump administration officials over Jimmy Kimmel's commentary on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
In his opening monologue, Kimmel had said that "[w]e 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." At the time, the FBI had not mentioned the shooter Tyler Robinson's "background, political leanings or a possible motive, saying the investigation was ongoing", and his mother had told prosecutors that he had shifted toward the political left and had become "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented".
The network's suspension of Kimmel created backlash from political leaders and commentators, entertainers, entertainment industry unions, constitutional scholars, and the public at large, with boycotts against Disney, ABC, and broadcast station owners Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group (whose respective decisions to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from their ABC-affiliated stations over his monologue remarks prompted the network's own decision to suspend the program), and sparked debate about the erosion of freedom of speech in the United States as well as concerns about encroaching authoritarianism under the Trump administration.
On September 22, 2025, Disney and ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would resume production on September 23. In response, Nexstar and Sinclair said their stations would not air the show upon its return, prompting further criticism toward both companies. On September 26, Nexstar and Sinclair announced that they would cease preempting the program.
Background
Donald Trump
U.S. president Donald Trump has frequently attacked the American mainstream media, claiming it has a liberal bias and is "corrupt". He has also sued various media outlets for perceived inaccuracies or biases (structured in the form of SLAPP litigation designed to extract financial and editorial concessions), and has used his position as president to defund public broadcasting, pressure outlets he dislikes by interfering in their business operations, launching investigations, and threatening to revoke broadcast licenses. At direction of Disney CEO Bob Iger, ABC paid $15 million in December 2024 to settle a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network over statements made by This Week moderator George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been found civilly liable for rape rather than sexual abuse in E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump. Critics saw Iger's surrender to Trump as a dangerous precedent and threat to free speech in the United States.
President Trump promised to "shatter the left-wing censorship regime" in his personal policies platform for the 2024 campaign (Agenda 47) and in his 2025 inaugural address stated: "After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents — something I know something about. We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again."
Brendan Carr
Dating to November 2024, when he was being considered for the FCC chairmanship following Trump's reelection to a non-consecutive second term, Brendan Carr (who was first appointed by Trump to the agency's Board of Commissioners in August 2017) had argued in favor of punishing broadcasters for alleged anti-conservative bias, and described content not being in the public interest if they were biased against conservatives.
Carr authored the FCC chapter of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 conservative policy platform, in which he argued for—among other issues—deregulation of broadcast media; restricting social media platforms' Section 230 immunity from liability for third-party content (under a longstanding interpretation of the law by conservatives that incorrectly claims it gives platforms authority to censor online speech); requiring transparency from platforms about changes to recommendation algorithms and their decisions to block or demonetize users; and calling for ban of the social video platform TikTok (contradictory to Trump's pledge during his 2024 presidential campaign), amid public criticism from TikTok users toward the Biden administration and Congress over the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a federal "divest-or-ban" law targeting the platform, due to alleged national security risks because of its ownership by its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
In December 2024, Carr wrote a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger that stated that "Americans no longer trust the national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly", that "ABC's own conduct has certainly contributed to this erosion in public trust", and that he would be "monitoring the outcome" of unrelated financial negotiations of ABC affiliates. He also told Chris Cuomo on NewsNation that he would break up the "censorship cartel" that he claimed to affect the government, social media, and traditional media platforms. The next month, Carr reopened a complaint against WPVI-TV (ABC's Philadelphia owned-and-operated station) that had been dismissed by Jessica Rosenworcel, his predecessor as FCC chair, over ABC's moderation of the September 2024 presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris. In March 2025, Carr launched an investigation into Disney's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and threatened to revoke ABC's broadcast license over the practices.
During the first months of his tenure as FCC chair, Carr was criticized by former FCC commissioners and chairs, including Michael Copps, Tom Wheeler, Reed Hundt, and Alfred C. Sikes. After the suspension, social media users found previous comments made public by Carr that were contrary to his stated reasons for pressuring the suspension of Kimmel, which argued against government intervention in regulating non-obscene broadcast material and against restricting access to content based on ideological views expressed by certain outlets. He referred to free speech as the "bedrock of democracy" and described political censorship as a "tool that those in power use to suppress any challenge to their positions or orthodoxy". In 2019, Carr stated: "The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the 'public interest.'" In another post from 2022, Carr stated: "Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more into the discussion. That's why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship." In 2023, Carr reiterated that "free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian's dream."
Jimmy Kimmel
While Jimmy Kimmel and ABC had signed a three-year contract extension, running through the 2025–26 season, to continue his show in September 2022, he had considered ending the program just before the 2023 SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. Kimmel began hosting his ABC late-night talk show in January 2003; incidentally, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was created as a permanent replacement for Politically Incorrect, which ABC canceled in June 2002 following widespread condemnation and advertiser boycotts over host Bill Maher's comments during the political panel talk show's first new episode after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks suggesting that the perpetrators were not cowards (contravening remarks made by then-President George W. Bush the day prior to the broadcast), whereas "[American military leaders had] been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away".
Kimmel has been a relentless critic of President Trump since his first term, declaring, "One of the most fun parts of my job is knowing that he hates being made fun of, and making fun of him", culminating with Kimmel reading and mocking a Truth Social post by then-presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump at the closing of the 96th Academy Awards ceremony in March 2024. In 2015, during his first presidential candidacy running as a Republican, Trump cancelled a scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, citing a prior obligation. During his first term, Trump tried to have Kimmel censored by Disney. After the July 2025 cancellation of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he quipped that Kimmel was next.
Development
On the night of September 10, none of the late-night talk shows mentioned the assassination of Charlie Kirk; only The Late Show with Stephen Colbert included a message preceding the pre-recorded broadcast; Kimmel posted condolences on Instagram, abhorring the killing of the conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder, and criticizing "finger pointing" by conservatives towards the left in the wake of the assassination. On September 11, almost all the late-night shows referred to the Kirk killing; Kimmel said, "Like the rest of the country, we’re still trying to wrap our heads around the senseless murder of the popular podcaster and conservative activist Charlie Kirk yesterday, whose death has amplified our anger, our differences, and I've seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won't ever understand." He then criticized President Trump for not trying to "bring the country together" like former presidents such as Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Clinton had done.
Monologue and criticism
In his September 15, 2025, opening monologue, Kimmel said about the reaction from President Donald Trump, Trump administration officials (such as deputy policy chief of staff Stephen Miller and attorney general Pam Bondi), and other conservatives to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, "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." At the time, the FBI had not mentioned the shooter Tyler Robinson's "background, political leanings or a possible motive, saying the investigation was ongoing", and his mother had told prosecutors that he had shifted toward the political left and had become "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented". Initial criticism also focused on Kimmel's subsequent remark, which compared Trump's reaction to Kirk's death to a four-year-old mourning a goldfish.
The Hollywood Reporter editor-at-large James Hibberd wrote in a September 18 column that Kimmel's remark on that Monday's broadcast was an aside whose "clunky wording" converted it from the words he said "into the inflammatory conclusion that has been widely reached." In his September 16 monologue, Kimmel directed further criticism towards conservatives aligned with Trump, accusing them of politicizing the assassination to blame and target the left (as well as to demonize transgender individuals, citing misinformation related in part on a debunked tip to federal investigators that claimed the bullets that Robinson allegedly used to shoot Kirk were engraved with "transgender ideology" messages), specifically taking aim at allies like vice president JD Vance (who blamed the left for the assassination during his September 15 guest host appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show) and Trump's son Eric Trump.
During a September 17 interview on conservative commentator Benny Johnson's podcast, FCC chairman Brendan Carr threatened punitive action against ABC, Disney, and independent owners of ABC-affiliated stations if Kimmel was not reprimanded for his monologue remarks, stating: "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." He called Kimmel's comments "truly sick" and claimed his agency "has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC, and network parent Disney accountable for spreading misinformation", arguing that Kimmel "appeared to be making an intentional effort to mislead the public that Kirk's assassin was a right-wing Trump supporter."
Carr argued that Kimmel's remarks could be seen as not in the public interest, which he argued is required to hold a broadcast license; however, the FCC's authority in regulating broadcast content is largely limited to obscene material (including graphic profanity, nudity, explicit sexual content, and excessive violence), advertising during children's programs (including restrictions on product cross-promotion with programs), sponsorship identification requirements and the conduct of on-air contests. The agency officially holds that "the public interest is best served by permitting free expression of views", and that "rather than suppress speech, communications law and policy seek to encourage responsive 'counter-speech' from others." While Carr claimed that Kimmel's remarks may have been an act of "news distortion" (although as a late-night entertainment talk show with satirical news commentary, it is doubtful that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be subject to those requirements), broadcasters are only subject to enforcement if it can be proven that they deliberately distorted a factual news report whereas factual inaccuracies are not actionable.