Jimmy Kimmel

President Trump has said many things about “Saturday Night Live” over the years. Few of them are favorable, highlighting his disdain for the late-night sketch comedy show, though his previous stints as host would suggest otherwise.

The president hosted the show in 2004 and in 2015, shortly after announcing his first run for president. The decision to have him host “SNL” in 2015 was controversial at the time, but NBC’s top brass defended the move, citing his front-runner status among Republicans and the high ratings it produced. “At the end of the day, he was on the show for 11 minutes and … it wasn’t like the Earth fell off its axis,” said then-NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt during the Television Critics Assn. press tour in 2016. He would later call Trump “toxic” and “demented.”

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he believes the show is unfunny, lacks talent and is “just a political ad for the Dems” nowadays. The sentiment echoes comments he’s made about late-night talk show hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and their respective shows, each known for skewering Trump. With Season 51 of “Saturday Night Live” set to begin Saturday, and recent settlements with media outlets and tech companies making headlines — YouTube settled a Trump lawsuit for nearly $25 million Monday over the suspension of his account — a renewed focus will be on the show and how it spoofs the president and his policies.

Colbert’s series was canceled by CBS in July and will conclude its 10-year run next year in May. While CBS cited financial reasons for its decision to end Colbert’s show, the host was a vocal critic of both Trump and CBS’ parent company, Paramount, which had recently settled a lawsuit with Trump just before the Federal Communications Commission approved its merger with Skydance Media (Colbert called the settlement “a big fat bribe”).

Kimmel was benched by ABC in September after the head of the FCC, a Trump appointee, threatened the network over the host’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer. Kimmel has since returned to the air, and used his first episode back to defend free speech. Colbert and Kimmel also appeared as guests on each other’s shows Tuesday, expressing mutual support and cracking jokes at Trump’s expense. Trump has also called for NBC to ax its late-night hosts Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, both of whom are “SNL” alums.

Now, “SNL” could be the next target of the administration’s scrutiny. Trump’s posts on social media have previously aired his disapproval for how the series mocks and satirizes him and his administration, and he has suggested investigating NBC as result.

“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC!,” Trump tweeted in February 2019, during his first term in office. “Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!”

Donald Trump in 2015, the year NBC cut ties after he made comments about undocumented Mexican immigrants.

(Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images)

Over the years, Trump has had a contentious relationship with the network that once aired “The Apprentice,” the show that made him a reality TV star, and his Miss Universe pageant. In 2015, NBC cut ties with Trump over comments he made about undocumented Mexican immigrants.

“Saturday Night Live,” which celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year with multiple specials, has been churning out political parodies for decades, and its comedy has targeted leaders from all political backgrounds.

The first time Trump was portrayed on “SNL” was in 1988 by then-cast member Phil Hartman. Since then, a host of actors and cast members have cycled through with their Trump impressions, with one of the most memorable being Alec Baldwin, who took over from Darrell Hammond in 2016 ahead of the presidential election.

Trump disliked Baldwin’s portrayal, and wrote in 2018 that Baldwin’s “dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation.” Baldwin won an Emmy for supporting actor in 2017 for playing the president.

The “30 Rock” actor’s stint as Trump on “SNL” lasted through 2020, and he made appearances as Trump even when the show was filming remotely during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of his most memorable moments impersonating the president were in cold opens that mocked the debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Alec Baldwin in 2017 as President-elect Donald J. Trump during a “Saturday Night Live” cold open sketch.

(Will Heath / NBC)

In March 2019, Trump wrote that “SNL” continues “knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side.’” The episode that aired the weekend he wrote that tweet was a rerun. “Like an advertisement without consequences,” he went on.

According to reports from the Daily Beast, Trump took a step beyond airing his grievances over Twitter that time. He reportedly asked advisors and lawyers in early 2019 about what the FCC, the court system, and even the Department of Justice could do to look into “SNL” and other late-night comedy figures who had mocked him. That inquiry did not amount to any actions, according to the outlet.

In 2022, Trump said the show’s ratings were “HUUUGE!” when he hosted, but that they’ve since tapered off. The most recent season of “SNL” was the most-watched in three years, with a season average of more than 8 million viewers.

He went on to write that creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels is “angry and exhausted, the show even more so. It was once good, never great, but now, like the Late Night Losers who have lost their audience but have no idea why, it is over for SNL — A great thing for America!”

Michaels, who rarely gives interviews, reflected on the cancellation of Colbert’s show and what it means for late-night television in an August conversation with Puck News. Michaels said he was “stunned” by CBS’ cancellation of “The Late Show,” but added, “I don’t think any of us are going to ever know” if the decision was political.

“Whatever crimes Trump is committing, he’s doing it in broad daylight,” Michaels went on to say. “There is absolutely nothing that the people who vote for him — or me — don’t know.” He also called Trump a “really powerful media figure” who “knows how to hold an audience.”

“His politics are obviously not my politics, but denouncing [him] doesn’t work,” he added.

While many cold opens and “Weekend Update” segments have been dedicated to skewering the president, often making him the butt of jokes, the cold open in the episode immediately following the 2024 election had a different approach. Trump’s opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, had appeared on an episode just days before the election, but after Trump’s victory, the cast promised they had “been with [him] all along,” adding that they all voted for him and supported him.

“If you’re keeping some sort of list of your enemies, then we should not be on that list,” they said before debuting their new Trump impression, “Hot jacked Trump,” which featured impressionist James Austin Johnson in a muscle tee and a headband.

Johnson began portraying the president on the series in 2021, and Michaels said he will continue in the role for Season 51. His portrayal mirror’s Trump’s speech patterns and his tendency to veer into tangents about pop culture. Since Trump’s inauguration in January, the cold opens have zeroed in on Trump, focusing on his relationship with Elon Musk and his policies.

The “Weekend Update” segment, hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che, tends to take sharper jabs the president’s policies and comments, as well as other administration officials.

In the Puck interview, Michaels implied the show wasn’t going to back down, and when he was asked whether political comedy will be tougher in the current climate, Michaels said no.

“I don’t think anybody knows what Michael Che’s politics are,” he said, “but they do think he’s funny.”

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC who has been in the headlines for his role in Kimmel’s benching, wrote in 2020 that political satire is one of the “oldest and most important forms of free speech.”

“From Internet memes to late-night comedians, from cartoons to the plays and poems as old as organized government itself — Political Satire circumvents traditional gatekeepers & helps hold those in power accountable,” he continued. “Not surprising that it’s long been targeted for censorship.”

The late night circuit got its version of a unique crossover event Tuesday night as Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert appeared as guests on each other’s shows.

It was a fitting stunt considering both talk show hosts have been at the center of noteworthy professional situations shrouded in political and national significance, and both orbit in the same universe of President Trump’s contempt. The two hosts, who have vocally supported each other through the respective ordeals on their shows, were now able to continue the mutual backing in full force, face-to-face.

In the wake of the fallout of Kimmel’s suspension earlier this month over comments he made related to the death of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, the recently reinstated host charged ahead with moving his L.A.-based show to Brooklyn for a week as planned, with Colbert among the star-studded list of guests. Colbert was effusive in his support of Kimmel after ABC pre-empted his talk show, criticizing the decision as “blatant censorship.”

Kimmel, meanwhile, appeared on “The Late Show,” alongside pop star Sam Smith. Earlier this year, CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show” and would end after the season wraps in May 2026 — marking not only the end of Colbert’s run at the helm, but also bringing the late night institution to a close after a 30-year run. The decision, the company said, was due to financial reasons and not — as many have speculated — because of Colbert’s criticism of a deal between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, the network that airs “The Late Show,” over.a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Kimmel was one of the many who expressed disdain over the decision, even campaigning for Colbert to win an Emmy though Kimmel was on the same ballot. (Colbert ultimately won.)

Ahead of Kimmel’s appearance on “The Late Show,” Colbert hosted another late-night host, Conan O’Brien, who appeared as a guest Monday, opening the conversation with, “Stephen, how’s late night? What’s going on? I’ve been out of it for a little bit — catch me up on what’s happening.”

“I’ll send you the obituary,” Colbert replied.

Here are five standout moments from the night of shared grievances.

Stephen Colbert, left, and Jimmy Kimmel backstage at “The Late Show.”

(Scott Kowalchyk/CBS)

Colbert says he ‘sweat through his shirt’ the day he told his staff ’The Late Show’ was canceled

In his first sit-down interview since the “The Late Show” was canceled, Colbert walked Kimmel through the timeline of his show’s cancellation. He said he received the news from their mutual manager, James Dixon, after the taping of his show on July 16. He got home to his wife, Evie McGee-Colbert, two and a half hours later. As he walked into the apartment, according to Colbert, his wife said, “What happened? You get canceled?”

Dixon knew for a week but had been hesitant to relay the news to Colbert, who was on vacation. Once he learned the show’s fate, Colbert said he was unsure about when he should break the news to his staff, debating whether to wait until after the summer break or in September. His wife, though, said he would tell them the following day.

“We get into the building,” he said, “I go up the elevator, I walk through the offices. By time I get to my offices, I have sweat through my shirt because I didn’t want to know anything my staff didn’t know. And I said, ‘I’m going to tell my staff today,’ but then we couldn’t do a show if I told them because everybody would be bummed out and I would be bummed out.”

He only told executive producer Tom Purcell at first. He got through the whole show. And then he asked the audience and staff to stick around for one more act so he could record the announcement.

“My stage manager goes, ‘Oh no, we’re done, Steve, we’re done.’ And I said, ‘nope, there’s one more act of the show. Please don’t let the audience leave.’ And he goes, ‘No, boss, no. Boss. I got that. I got the thing here. We’ve done everything.’ And I said, ‘I’m aware of that. And I’m here to tell you there’s one more act of the show,’” he explained. “So I went backstage, I said, ‘Everybody, get on Zoom.’ I told everybody as briefly as I could so they wouldn’t find out about it on air. And then I went back out on stage to tell everybody. And I was so nervous about doing it right — because there was nothing in the prompter, I was just speaking off the cuff — that I f— up twice. And I had to restart and the audience thought it was a bit and they started going, ‘Steve, you can do it.’ Because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them was happening, and they didn’t laugh.”

Kimmel, in turn, shared that he found out about “The Late Show’s” cancellation while attending a No Kings protest march.

Kimmel says he took the call from ABC about his suspension from the bathroom

Jimmy Kimmel on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Tuesday.

(Scott Kowalchyk/CBS)

Like Colbert, Tuesday marked the first time Kimmel had been interviewed since his suspension earlier this month, and he detailed the day he got the news he was being pulled from the air.

Kimmel’s office is busy — there’s roughly five other people working in there with him at all times, he told Colbert. So when ABC executives wanted to speak with him less than two hours before he was set to tape that night’s episode, Kimmel resorted to the bathroom to take the call in private.

“I’m on the phone with the ABC executives, and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re gonna say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air,’” Kimmel said before the audience interjected with boos.

“There was a vote, and I lost the vote, and so I put my pants back on and I walked out to my office,” before telling some of his producing team the news, he said. “My wife said I was whiter than Jim Gaffigan when I came out.”

The decision on Kimmel’s suspension came so late in the day that the audience was already in their seats and had to be sent home, Kimmel told Colbert.

A sign of the times?

While touting the crossover event in his monologue (“We thought it might be a fun way to drive the President nuts so…”), Kimmel took time to stress the groundswell of support Colbert has both in New York, where he does his show, and in Kimmel’s homebase of L.A. To prove it, the camera cut to a photo showing signs that were displayed over the 101 freeway in L.A. when Kimmel went back on the air following his suspension. They read: “Public pressure works — Kimmel is back!”

“And this is the sign that is up now,” Kimmel continued, cutting to video of more recent signage over the freeway. “It says, “Now do Colbert.”

Gavin Newsom traveled to Brooklyn. Or did he?

Seth Meyers, left, Josh Meyers as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Jimmy Kimmel on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

(Randy Holmes/ABC)

The California governor — who also moonlights (by proxy of his social media team) as the unofficial No. 1 Trump troll — made the cross-country trip to Brooklyn to surprise Kimmel on stage. Or did he? As the host mentioned the politician’s latest jab at Trump during his monologue, Newsom barreled onto the stage on a bike before finding his place next to Kimmel for a roughly six-minute spiel, delivered in his best California bro speak, on his mission to bring people together.

“L.A and N.Y.C., we’re not so different,” Newsom said. “I mean, we both just want to be free to smoke weed while riding our electric scooters to a drag queen brunch.”

As Kimmel pressed how exactly they can succeed in coming together, a blustering Newsom responded: “We already started, dog. These people get it. They have their own great late night hosts here in NYC, but tonight they chose my homie from L.A. They could be partying with my dude, J-Fall and The Roots crew — they’re a rap band … because you did look confused. Anyway, these Brooklyn-istas came to see you instead of checking out the political commentary of John Oliver or J-Stew or pay their respects to Colbert before he shipped off to Guantanamo Gay, or they could have gone and watched whatever that little creep Seth Meyers is doing … dude dresses like a substitute Montessori teacher. I mean, do you know why he sits down for his jokes? Same reason yo’ mama sits down to pee.”

Cue a special appearance from Seth Meyers, Kimmel’s friend and fellow late night host to rein in … his brother? For the non-late night connoisseurs reading this: Meyers’ brother, Josh, played the “Covid bro” version of Newsom during the pandemic in sketches that aired on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” Newsom took the gag further on Tuesday, impersonating Josh impersonating himself on Kimmel’s stage.

“We’re bros, but no, we’re not,” Newsom as Josh said. “Look, I get this all the time, probably because we’re both so hot.”

Meanwhile, keeping the planned awkwardness going, Kimmel took the opportunity to mention to Meyers that he was in town if he wanted to get dinner. Meyers responded: “What happened with your show? I thought this whole thing was, you know … “

“We’re back on the air,” Kimmel said. “We’re back on now.”

It should also be noted that Kimmel, Colbert and Meyers later posed for a photo onstage and uploaded it to their respective social media accounts with the caption, “Hi Donald!”

Guillermo brings the fun (and the tequila)

Guillermo Rodriguez, left, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert taking a round of shots on “The Late Show.”

(Scott Kowalchyk/CBS)

Looking ahead at the remaining months Colbert will be on the air, Kimmel asked the host when he was going to “go nuts,” and suggested he lose his glasses and “maybe do some ayahuasca on set.” Kimmel then gifted him a bong with a Statue of Liberty design, which he called a “chemistry set.”

Colbert started playing along by unbuttoning his blazer and saying “f— that” to a signal that he only had a minute left in the segment. (“What are they gonna do, cancel me?” Colbert asked). Then, as if right on cue, Guillermo Rodriguez, Kimmel’s friend and sidekick on his show, came onto the stage with tequila (and three shot glasses) in hand.

On the first round of Don Julio, Colbert made a toast: “To good friends, great jobs and late-night TV.”

Colbert then poured another round and Kimmel pulled out the bong he had gifted the host. The group then took one more shot together and Kimmel toasted to Colbert.

Guillermo, who got a round of hearty cheers from the crowd, is known for giving out shots and toasting with A-Listers at awards shows and other Hollywood events.

In Hollywood, something shifted in the six days between the time that Walt Disney Co. dropped “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “indefinitely,” following Kimmel’s comments about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and the late-night comedian’s return.

For many, Kimmel’s rebound appears to be a win for free speech and a testament to the power of boycotts against powerful corporate interests. However, for other writers, particularly comedy scribes, who view the events that transpired in the darkest, most McCarthy-esque terms, the fight over comedy may have just begun.

“There’s fear and outrage at the same time,” said Emmy-winning comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who for years was the head writer for the Oscars and “Hollywood Squares” and has written jokes for comics including Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.

“Ever since ‘woke’ started before COVID and George Floyd, comedy became a minefield. And then, last week, it became a nuclear garden,” he said.

Indeed, the day after Disney announced Kimmel’s return, President Trump told reporters that TV networks critical of him are an “arm of the Democrat Party,” and said, “I would think maybe their license should be taken away.” Angered that Kimmel was returning to the airwaves, he took to social media to threaten ABC and called for the late-night scalps of NBC’s Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon.

Such ominous threats have cast a pall in writers rooms across the industry.

One showrunner currently developing multiple series, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that many of her colleagues have started to become more cautious about incorporating certain elements in their stories, something they didn’t do before. Others are having discussions privately rather than posting them on social media.

Several writers and showrunners who have worked on late-night shows, sitcoms and films declined to share their thoughts on the matter with The Times, citing fear of reprisals.

The cascade of anxiety comes at a time when Hollywood continues to struggle to get on solid footing after the pandemic lockdown, the dual labor strikes in 2023 and cost-cutting across the media landscape.

“Artists are already very concerned about our consolidated media ecosystem. A small shrinking number of gatekeepers control what Americans watch on TV, and these conglomerates are now being coerced into censoring us all by an administration that demands submission and obedience from what should be a free and independent media,” said television writer Meredith Stiehm, who is the outgoing president of Writers Guild of America West, during a rally in support of Kimmel outside the El Capitan Theatre last week.

“This cowardice has not only put the livelihoods of 20 writers, crew members and performers in limbo,” she said. “It has put our industry and our democracy in danger.”

Political satire has long held a mirror to human folly while challenging power with humor.

More than 2,400 years ago, Greek playwright Aristophanes’ biting, satirical comedies such as “Lysistrata” ridiculed Athens leaders during the Peloponnesian War. Many of the English nursery rhymes that are now viewed as sweet stories of princesses and fairies began appearing during the 14th century as veiled swipes at the monarchy. Rather than a lovely children’s melody, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is said to be a critique of the wool tax imposed by King Edward I.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the brilliant satirical singer-songwriter (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer skewered taboo topics of the day such as the Catholic Church, militarism and racial conflict in America through parody songs.

In the early 1970s, George Carlin’s controversial monologue about the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” set off a landmark Supreme Court case that broadened the definition of indecency on public airwaves and set a free speech precedent for comedians.

Every presidential campaign season has become must-see TV on “Saturday Night Live.” Think Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush, Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin or Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.

But now the political climate has changed drastically.

“It’s a dark time for comedians and, by extension, for all Americans,” said a statement put out by hundreds of comedians under the banner Comedians4Kimmel in the wake of his ouster.

“When the government targets one of us, they target all of us. They strike at the heart of our shared humanity. They strip away the basic right every person deserves: to speak freely, question boldly, and laugh loudly.”

What’s different now is that where once market and cultural forces placed pressures on comedians — see Ellen DeGeneres and Roseanne Barr — the squeeze is now coming directly from the government. (Barr, who was fired from her eponymous reboot in 2018 after she made a racist tweet about senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, has accused ABC of having a “double standard.”)

“That’s just called censorship,” said Vilanch. “This is the government actually intervening in the most capricious way.”

It’s not just late-night comedy that is deemed offensive, Trump has made public a rolling perceived enemies list, and he is going after them with vigor.

Just last week, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted, and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said that she would “absolutely target” people who engaged in “hate speech.”

This month, Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion, claiming that the paper and four of its journalists had engaged in a “decades-long pattern … of intentional and malicious defamation.” A federal judge dismissed the suit. In July, he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion, claiming defamation. That suit is ongoing.

What’s deemed funny or offensive has shifted through the years. Comedy writers have long pushed that line and adjusted. But after the cultural wars and trigger warnings of recent years, where writers adapted to audience sensitivities, they are now facing an era where offending the president and his administration itself is considered illegal.

”So much was going on before,” said a veteran late-night TV writer. “It just feels like another brick in the wall of the world that I have worked in for the past 35 years no longer exists.”

The uproar over Kimmel began after the comedian seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.

Last Tuesday, after Kimmel came back on air with a defiant defense of free speech, several writers sighed a breath of relief, seeing his return as a victory.

“It would have been scary if this actually ended in his firing,” said the former late-night writer.

But the culture and free speech wars are not over.

“I think [comedy] will get sharper,” said Vilanch. “It will get sharper and probably meaner because people are angry, and they want to fight back. And that’s always what happens when you try and shut people down. They come back stronger.”

A group of Walt Disney Co. shareholders is demanding the company release information related to the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, according to a recent letter.

The letter, dated Wednesday and sent by the American Federation of Teachers union and press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, said the groups want transparency into Disney’s decision last week to indefinitely suspend the show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” following comments he made in his monologue about the shooter who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Disney reinstated Kimmel’s show Tuesday, saying in a statement that the initial decision was made to “avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country” and calling some of his comments “ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

The late-night host’s suspension set off a political firestorm and nationwide debate about free speech. Protesters demonstrated outside the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood as well as Disney’s Burbank headquarters. More than 400 celebrities signed an open letter decrying attempts at government censorship. Some called for consumers to cancel their Disney+ streaming subscriptions.

“Disney shareholders deserve the truth about exactly what went down inside the company after Brendan Carr’s threat to punish ABC unless action was taken against Jimmy Kimmel,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “The Disney board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of its shareholders — and we are seeking answers to discover if that bond was broken to kowtow to the Trump administration.”

Prior to the initial suspension decision, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr had called for Disney to take action against Kimmel during a podcast interview that aired last week. Carr said there could be consequences for the TV stations that carry his show. Shortly before Disney announced Kimmel’s initial suspension, TV station groups Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group each said they would preempt the show and have said they will not bring it back.

The letter calls for Disney to provide records, including any meeting minutes or written materials, related to the suspension or return of Kimmel’s show.

“There is a credible basis to suspect that the Board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the Company and its stockholders,” the letter said.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

Bomb the United Nations headquarters. Or maybe gas it. Fox News host Jesse Watters had plenty of ideas about how to punish the U.N. after President Trump’s humiliating visit to the organization’s New York headquarters Tuesday.

Trump’s arrival at the General Assembly meeting with First Lady Melania Trump began with the pair stranded at the bottom of an escalator that stopped just as the couple stepped on. The hijinks continued when he stepped behind the lectern to speak and the teleprompter was not working. Trump decided to wing it, leaning into his impromptu-diatribe skills with threats, boasts, mentions of assorted global thingamabobs and something about ending seven wars.

The “from the heart” address did not appear to impress the gathering of world leaders, especially the part where he said, “Your countries are going to hell.” Here’s where I imagine Norway leaning over and whispering to Oman, “At least our escalators work.”

But one man’s technical glitch is another man’s conspiracy theory, as Watters showed Tuesday on Fox News’ talk show “The Five.” He asserted that Trump’s troubles were the result of sabotage and that those malfunctions were in fact “an insurrection.”

“What we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it,” Watters joked. Co-hosts Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld groan-laughed, if there is such a thing.

Watters then said, “[The U.N. headquarters] is in New York, though, right? Could be some fallout there. Maybe gas it?”

“Let’s not do that,” Perino said.

Watters acquiesced, then said, “OK, but we need to destroy it. Maybe can we demolish the building? Have everybody leave and then we’ll demolish the building.”

He continued: “This is absolutely unacceptable, and I hope they get to the bottom of it, and I hope they really injure, emotionally, the people that did it.”

The comments did not come from a liberal late-night host, which probably explains why there were no Mafioso-style threats from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr calling for Fox and Watters to tone it down — or else.

Like Watters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt smelled escalator sabotage and said as much in an X post: “If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately.” She shared a screenshot of a Sunday article from the Times of London with reporting that said U.N. staff members had “joked that they may turn off the escalators” and “tell him they ran out of money so he has to walk up the stairs.”

Then guess what everyone is now posting about? That would be former VP hopeful and current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s response to Leavitt’s post: “Not only do they need to be fired, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It’s a miracle the President ever made it up the stairs.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who on X has been mocking Trump’s social media approach for months, zeroed in on the 79-year-old president’s careful climb up the stationary set of stairs Tuesday. “DOZY DON WAS DEFEATED BY THE ESCALATOR, POOR GUY! THE ENTIRE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT THE LOW IQ ‘PRESIDENT.’ NEXT STOP: THE BEST ROOM AT MEMORY MEADOWS RETIREMENT RESORT. TYLENOL INCLUDED. ENJOY YOUR STAY, DON! — GCN.”

Leavitt said the U.S. Secret Service is among the agencies deployed to investigate the escalator whodunit.

But the escalator perpetrator may be closer to home than Trump’s inner circle and his supporters in the media imagined. According to a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, Trump’s videographer may have been responsible for jamming the escalator when he ran ahead of the president, potentially triggering a safety mechanism.

As for the teleprompter, the Associated Press reported that the White House was responsible for operating the teleprompter for the president. And a person with knowledge of the situation revealed to the Daily Beast that delegations are allowed to bring their own laptops and teleprompter operators, and the U.N. was not running it for Trump’s speech. The source said that the White House had its own laptop and U.N. technicians were not in the booth for the president’s address. A separate anonymous source also told ABC News that the teleprompter was being operated by someone from the White House, not a member of the U.N. staff.

Watters’ “blow up the U.N.” joke was not funny, especially in our current climate of deadly attacks on political figures by troubled men with guns. But his dangerous strain of humor was soon overshadowed by what another TV personality had to say that evening.

In Jimmy Kimmel’s first opening monologue since his show was pulled last week by ABC, he asked that Americans fight censorship, not each other. The host’s long-running show was indefinitely pulled by the network a week ago after conservative outcry over his remark that “the MAGA gang [was] 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.”

On Tuesday, Kimmel teared up when he spoke of Kirk’s death and said he never meant to make light of a young man’s killing. The host also reiterated that liking him or his show was not the point. “This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this,” he said, emphasizing the value of free speech.

The ousting of Kimmel, a longtime critic and target of the president, was the most high-profile test yet of protecting the 1st Amendment right to free speech in the face of an administration that has weaponized the FCC against its detractors. Upon his return Tuesday, the host was greeted with a standing ovation by his studio audience. Kimmel’s monologue then amassed 11 million YouTube views in its first 12 hours online and is now poised to set a record for being the host’s most-watched opening monologue ever.

Kimmel’s comeback was yet another unfortunate turn for Trump on the Worst Tuesday Ever, and it can’t be explained away as the act of a teleprompter terrorist. But the MAGA-verse is doing its best to make the case, or when it comes to Watters, joking about blowing up places that offend their leader, proving there’s more broken in America than just a U.N. escalator.

Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional Tuesday return to his late-night hosting perch at ABC gave his program its largest audience ever in its regular 11:35 p.m. time period, despite not airing for nearly a quarter of U.S. households.

An average of 6.26 million viewers tuned in to watch “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” as the comedian addressed his suspension that became a free speech cause celebre, according to Nielsen. ABC had pulled the show “indefinitely” starting Sept. 17 following blowback over Kimmel’s remarks about the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The only times “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has scored higher ratings were when it aired special episodes after the Oscars and the Super Bowl. Preliminary numbers for Tuesday’s show didn’t include streaming.

The program delivered strong numbers despite not airing on 60 network affiliates covering 23% of U.S. television households. Television station ownership groups Nexstar and Sinclair kept the program off their ABC-affiliated outlets even as Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC resumed production.

By late Wednesday, 15 million people had watched Kimmel’s monologue and a comedy bit with actor Robert De Niro on YouTube, where ABC made it available shortly after it aired on TV. ABC said a total of 26 million people watched the monologue across YouTube and social media platforms.

Kimmel clearly grasped that his return would be a historic moment in the annals of late-night TV, as his network-imposed hiatus became a global news story and sparked a widespread debate about free speech and the role of government regulators.

He opened with the line, “Before I was interrupted” — the same words “Tonight” show host Jack Paar used in 1960 when he returned from a monthlong walkout. Paar left his program after NBC censors cut a water closet joke from his monologue, which became one of the biggest TV industry controversies of that era.

Kimmel was pulled off the air the same day Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr took aim at the host’s Sept. 15 monologue, in which Kimmel said MAGA Republicans were using Kirk’s death to “score political points” and were trying to categorize suspected shooter Tyler Robinson as “anything other than one of them.”

Carr, who oversees regulations for broadcast stations, called Kimmel’s remarks “the sickest conduct possible” and called for ABC to act. He threatened to go after TV stations’ licenses if it failed to do so.

During his opening monologue, Kimmel got choked up when he told viewers it was “never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man” when he discussed the right wing’s response to the shooting.

But Kimmel went on to chastise Carr, showing his social media postings in recent years that gave unequivocal support to the 1st Amendment and condemning the censorship of TV hosts and commentators.

Since becoming FCC chair under the Trump administration, Carr has joined the president in denouncing his late-night critics.

While Kimmel was contrite regarding Kirk, he showed no mercy for Trump in the monologue addressing the matter that took much of the show, a clear indication that he won’t be changing his tone. He also continued to promote free speech, saying the government attempts to stifle voices such as his are “un-American” and “so dangerous.”

Kimmel also expressed gratitude to politically-right-leaning politicians and commentators who expressed dismay over his removal from the air, including Ted Cruz and Joe Rogan.

Trump reacted harshly to Kimmel’s return. In a Truth Social post, he said he may file another lawsuit against ABC. The network paid a $16-million settlement last year after “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said Trump was found liable of of sexual assault instead of sexual abuse.

A letter signed by several dozen former employees of ABC, which was obtained by The Times, praised Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger’s decision to return Kimmel to the air, but warned “it must be the first step in a concerted effort to defend free speech and press freedom against political intimidation.”

“The $16 million settlement with Donald Trump, combined with the absence of a strong public defense of ABC News journalists under attack, has emboldened Administration efforts to intimidate the press,” said the letter, which included the signatures of former ABC News correspondents Sam Donaldson, Chris Bury, Ned Potter, Judy Muller and Brian Rooney.

Nexstar is still keeping “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off its ABC affiliates. A Nexstar representative said Wednesday the company is having “productive discussions with executives at the Walt Disney Company, with a focus on ensuring the program reflects and respects the diverse interests of the communities we serve.”

A representative for Sinclair, which preempted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in markets such as Seattle and Washington, D.C., said in a statement that the company is also monitoring the situation before deciding to return the program to its ABC station program lineups.

Sept. 24 (UPI) — The FCC is prohibited from influencing network content but Chairman Brendan Carr and President Donald Trump have used pressure campaigns on ABC and others to test those limits.

The Trump administration’s attempt to push Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air worked, briefly. While consumer backlash convinced Disney and ABC to reverse course, the alarm has been sounded over the weaponization of federal authority to suppress free speech.

Kimmel returned to ABC on Tuesday, lamenting the importance of standing up for free speech in his opening monologue, calling attempts to take shows like his off the air for sharing dissenting opinions “un-American.”

“Ten years ago this sounded crazy: Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and ‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,'” Kimmel said. “In addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment, it is not a particularly intelligent threat to be made in public.”

Section 326 of the Communications Act states that the commission cannot interfere with the right to exercise free speech.

Former FCC Commissioner Tom Wheeler, who served during the Obama administration, told UPI Carr is bringing the commission into “uncharted territory.”

“The FCC is approaching 100 years old,” Wheeler said. “Over that period, one of its primary purposes has been to make sure when it comes to broadcasters using the people’s airwaves that there is a diversity of voices and a diversity of ownership.”

“That’s something that has held true until today, when we see the chairman of the FCC attempting to influence what people hear and we hear the president of the United States saying that he wants to consider yanking the broadcast licenses for those who don’t agree with him,” he continued.

One of the FCC’s chief responsibilities is licensing. It is responsible for ensuring that licenses are distributed and used in the public’s interest, convenience and necessity. The statute does not go on to define what public interest means, leaving it up to the heads of the FCC to determine this over the years.

Throughout its history, according to Wheeler, FCC chairmen have taken seriously the importance of fulfilling their duties in a neutral and independent way.

The FCC operations manual refers to Section 326 of the Communications Act and the First Amendment, stating that both “expressly prohibit the commission from censoring broadcast matter. Our role in overseeing program content is very limited.”

“Those are pretty explicit,” Wheeler said of the First Amendment and Section 326. “The public interest definition ought to presumably fall within the four corners of those kinds of descriptions.”

The FCC’s role in overseeing content may be limited, as its manual acknowledges, but it still has influence.

Networks are required to renew their licenses every eight years. This applies to all networks, including major networks like ABC and local companies.

The FCC must also approve the transfer of licenses when companies merge. For example, when Disney bought ABC, the ownership of its licenses needed to reflect this transfer of ownership. This is also true for companies like Sinclair and Nexstar purchasing local networks.

Nexstar has an agreement in place to purchase Tegna for $6.2 billion. If the deal is approved, Nexstar would own 265 stations in 44 states and the District of Columbia, including 132 of the top 210 TV markets in the country, expanding its reach to 80% of U.S. households.

The FCC has a 39% cap on how many households a network group can reach. It is called the National Television Ownership rule and its purpose is to maintain diversity, competition and localism by preventing a small number of companies from controlling the airwaves.

In June, the FCC Media Bureau filed a public notice that it seeks new public comments to refresh the record on television network ownership rules. It is looking for input on whether it should retain, modify or eliminate the 39% cap on network ownership. It last did this in 2017.

“The FCC has an economic lever over those that it regulates,” Wheeler said. “There’s economic leverage that Brendan Carr has been very successful in playing up.”

Nexstar owns 32 ABC affiliate networks and Sinclair owns more than 30. Both announced Tuesday that they will not air Jimmy Kimmel Live! despite ABC electing to bring it back.

The licenses held by networks permit them to use the public’s airwaves to broadcast content. It does not give them ownership of those airwaves. They belong to the public.

The licensing renewal process is usually straightforward and without much controversy, Gigi Sohn, Benton Institute senior fellow and public advocate, told UPI.

“Throughout almost the entire history of the FCC there has been one time and one time only that the FCC has denied a license renewal based on the content of programming,” Sohn said. “That was in the ’60s when a Mississippi radio and TV station refused to run any news program or any program of any kind about the Civil Rights movement and instead ran racist programming.”

Sohn added that the FCC, in that instance, did not tell the station it could not run one program and had to run another or had to change how it edited its programs. Instead, it determined the station was not serving the public interest because it was not giving its audience access to all the information related to the stories it was broadcasting.

“That is something that the FCC has the right to do when it looks at the overall programming of a broadcaster,” Sohn said. “What it doesn’t have the right to do is bully a network — into dropping one program because he made a joke about, not even about the president, not about Charlie Kirk, but about the way the president’s followers were reacting to the Kirk murder.”

After Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on his late-night show about the late Charlie Kirk, the FCC chairman threatened to take action against ABC and parent company Disney. Media companies Nexstar and Sinclair quickly followed with statements that were critical of Kimmel’s comments.

Within hours of Carr’s threats, ABC announced Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be preempted indefinitely.

According to Sohn and Wheeler, Carr wielded his regulatory power in this instance to influence ABC to remove Kimmel’s show from the airwaves due to his longtime criticism of the president. They add that it is not the first time Carr has done something like this since becoming chairman earlier this year.

A pending merger between Skydance and Paramount remained under scrutiny by Carr and the FCC for months before being approved in July. During the hold up, Carr investigated CBS News over its editorial decisions.

Trump meanwhile had an open lawsuit against CBS, seeking $20 billion over allegations that 60 Minutes edited an interview with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a way that was favorable to her and her candidacy. On July 2, it was reported that Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, settled with Trump for $16 million.

The FCC approved the Skydance-Paramount merger on July 24. As conditions of the merger, Skydance agreed to Carr’s demands that the company will end or not establish any diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

It also agreed to hire an ombudsman to oversee CBS News editorial decisions. The ombudsman, Kenneth Weinstein, is the former president and CEO of conservative think tank the Hudson Institute.

Harold Feld, senior vice president of Public Knowledge, told UPI a bad precedent is being set by networks like ABC and CBS as they give into pressure from the FCC and the president.

“Not only does it show the administration that these guys are going to cave and therefore we can keep pushing them, but it also means we won’t get coverage when the administration does this to other companies,” Feld said. “If the news has been cowed into submission it means the administration is free to do this to anyone and nobody will find out about it.”

Former FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez issued a statement after the suspension of Kimmel’s program was reinstated.

“As this FCC considers steps that would let the same billion-dollar media conglomerates that caved in to government pressure grow even bigger, we must combat these efforts to stifle free expression,” Gomez said.

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Jimmy Kimmel is back — and like his late-night peers, he’s not shying away from talking about ABC’s decision to bench him.

Tuesday’s show marked Kimmel’s return to his talk series since Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC announced last week that it was suspending the show indefinitely. The decision came after Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcasting, owners of ABC affiliates, said they would not air the show because of comments Kimmel made about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Both companies said they would continue to keep “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off air.

Kimmel was greeted by the studio audience with a long standing ovation and chants of “Jimmy.” He cracked a joke to open: “Who had a weirder 48 hours — me or the CEO of Tylenol?”

The host said he was moved by the support he had received from friends and fans, but especially from those who disagree with him. He cited comments from Ted Cruz and mentioned the support he received from Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens and Mitch McConnell.

“Our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television, and that we have to stand up to it,” he said. “I’ve been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight, and the truth is, I don’t think what I have to say is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me; if you don’t, you don’t; I have no illusions about changing anyone’s mind.”

What was most important to him, though, was imparting that it was “never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” Kimmel said through tears.

“I understand that to some that felt either ill timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset,” Kimmel said of his comments about Kirk’s suspected killer. “If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don’t agree on politics at all. I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution and it isn’t.”

Kimmel also said his ability to speak freely is “something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen [Colbert] off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air.”

“That’s not legal,” he continued. “That’s not American. That is un-American.”

The host did not comment on his suspension until Tuesday’s episode, which will air on the West Coast at 11:35 p.m. PT, but talk show hosts, actors, comedians, writers and even the former head of Disney had condemned ABC’s decision to pause production.

Hours before he taped Tuesday’s episode, Kimmel posted on Instagram for the first time since his suspension, sharing a photo of himself with iconic television creator Norman Lear. Kimmel captioned the photo “Missing this guy today.” The late Lear, whom Kimmel collaborated with on the television specials “Live in Front of a Studio Audience,” was an outspoken advocate for freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment and he founded the organization People for the American Way, which aims to stop censorship as one of its many goals.

Trump also took to social media before Tuesday’s episode to express his thoughts about Kimmel’s return, writing on Truth Social that he couldn’t believe the show was coming back: “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled [sic]!”

“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Trump continued. “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution.

He went on to write he wanted to “test ABC out on this.”

“Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars,” he wrote, referencing the settlement with ABC after Trump filed a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate statements made about him by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. “This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings.”

Pressure to suspend Kimmel came from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, who said in a podcast interview last week that ABC had to act on Kimmel’s comments. The Trump appointee said, “We can do it the easy way or the hard way.”

Hours later, Nexstar, which controls 32 ABC affiliates, agreed to drop “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely, and ABC followed with its own announcement that it was pulling Kimmel from the network. Sinclair Broadcasting, a TV station company long sympathetic to conservative causes, also shelved the show and went a step further by demanding that Kimmel make a financial contribution to Kirk’s family and his conservative advocacy organization Turning Point USA.

FCC Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, one of three commissioners, and the only Democratic member, released a searing statement the next day.

Gomez said the FCC “does not have the authority, the ability, or the constitutional right to police content or punish broadcasters for speech the government dislikes” and called the network’s move a “shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger.”

“When corporations surrender in the face of that pressure, they endanger not just themselves, but the right to free expression for everyone in this country,” Gomez continued. “The duty to defend the First Amendment does not rest with government, but with all of us. Free speech is the foundation of our democracy, and we must push back against any attempt to erode it.”

Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Meg James contributed to this report.

JIMMY Kimmel returned to his show on Tuesday night after ABC yanked him from the air nearly a week ago.

Kimmel, 57, addressed his audience after his show was pulled last week over controversial comments he made about political activist and influencer Charlie Kirk’s shooter.

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During his opening monologue, Kimmel took the time to speak out about free speech and the political climate in America.

The late night host took to the stage as he was welcomed with a standing ovation and chants of “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.”

The comedian opened the show with a crack, “If you’re just joining us, we are preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode of Celebrity Family Feud to bring you this special report.”

“I’m happy to be here tonight,” he added.

“I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol,” he said with a chuckle.

Kimmel took the time to thank a slew of friends, including his “fellow late-night talk show hosts, my friend Stephen Colbert who found himself in this predicament. My friend, John Stewart, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon.”

He also thanked the many people who don’t align with his political leanings but who still stood up for his right to say it.

He thanked Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, and then said “and even my old pal Ted Cruz,” before running a sound bite from the Texas senator.

Kimmel then continued “Some of the things they say even make me want to throw up but it takes courage for them to speak out against this administration. They did it. They deserve credit for it.”

ON HIS COMMENTS ON CHARLIE KIRK’S KILLER

The late-night host’s voice cracked as he opened up about the murder of activist Charlie Kirk and cleared the air, denouncing his killing unequivocally.

He continued, “I do want to make something clear, because it’s important to me as a human and that is you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said as he fought back tears.

“I posted a message on Instagram the day he was killed, sending love to [Kirk’s] family and asking for compassion, and I meant it, and I still do, nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual.”

“That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either it was ill-timed or unclear or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset,” he continued.

“If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don’t agree on politics at all, I don’t think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone.

“This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution and it isn’t it ever and also, selfishly, I am the person who gets a lot of threats. I get many ugly and scary threats against my life, my wife, my kids, my co workers because of what I choose to say, and I know those threats don’t come from the kind of people on the right who I know and love.”

“So that’s what I wanted to say on that subject,” he continued.

ON RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH

Kimmel then turned to the First Amendment, explaining that he’s spoken with comedians in countries like Russia and the Middle East who said they’d be thrown in jail or worse for making fun of those in power.

“They know how lucky we are here.

“Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country, and that’s something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Steven [Colbert] off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air.

“That’s not legal. That’s not American. That is un-American.”

He then turned his sites to Federal Communications Chairman, Brendan Carr.

“Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company, We can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ and that these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead, in addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment, is not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public,” Kimmel said.

The late night host then shared a clip of President Donald Trump vehemently heralding free speech in a quote in 2022.

He then played another quote from the president, which was from this week, in which he said of Kimmel “Look, he was fired. He had no talent. He’s a whack job, but he had no talent. More importantly, then talent, because a lot of people who have no talent get ratings, he had no ratings,” to which the audience booed.

Kimmel then joked “He tried, did his best to cancel me instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show which backfired ‘bigly.’

“He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now,” to which his audience erupted in raucous applause.

RATINGS BOOST?

As The U.S. Sun previously revealed, ABC execs are expecting Tuesday night’s show will prove a ratings boom.

The source said, “Everybody is excited about Kimmel’s expected ratings boost this week.

“Jimmy is becoming an icon for free speech… and now he’ll be even more secure as long as he plays his cards right.”

However, the late night host’s big return wasn’t aired in all markets.

Affiliate carriers, Sinclair and Nexstar, said they wouldn’t be airing Kimmel’s return on their stations.

“There are ongoing talks this morning [Tuesday] between Nexstar, Sinclair, and Disney, but Disney has drawn the line and is prepared for the fight,” an insider revealed.

On Monday night, Sinclair Broadcasting Group announced its decision to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! across its ABC affiliate stations, replacing the program with local news.

However, an insider pointed out that affiliate stations have contractual obligations to carry ABC programming, including advertisements that have already been sold.

The source alleged, “The affiliates are basically posturing for the White House,” while suggesting that the companies may be attempting to breach their contracts with ABC.

NEXSTAR’S BIG MOVE

Nexstar is seeking approval from the Trump administration’s FCC for an unprecedented acquisition of its competitor, Tegna, according to The New York Times.

If approved, the deal would likely surpass the current cap on households a single media company can reach.

An insider told The U.S. Sun that Disney is ready to take on Sinclair and Nexstar in the ongoing dispute over the suspension of Kimmel Live!

“Disney legal is prepared to fight it out, and right now, from a brand perspective, they’ve got nothing to lose by fighting,” the source said. “Disney holds the cards here.”

When reached for comment by The U.S. Sun, Nexstar declined to respond.

ABC and Sinclair were also contacted for comment.

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LATE NIGHT DRAMA

Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended after backlash erupted over controversial comments the comedian made regarding the suspected assassin of activist and influencer Charlie Kirk.

Just hours before his scheduled return on Tuesday night, Kimmel broke his silence.

The comedian posted a photo of himself with his late friend and producer Norman Lear, captioned, “Missing this guy today.”

KIMMEL RETURNS

On Monday afternoon, ABC issued a statement confirming that “thoughtful discussions” had taken place with Kimmel following his suspension.

The statement read, “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.

“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

CHAOS ON SET

As The U.S. Sun exclusively revealed last week, the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! was made just minutes before taping began on Wednesday, September 17th.

“Things transpired very fast. Word filtered down to the individual stations around 3 pm that Jimmy would get pulled, and it sent station heads panicking,” an insider shared.

“Jimmy and the crew were getting ready to film when, at 3:45 pm, news broke widely, and that’s how the crew found out. They were shocked.”

Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, described Kimmel’s remarks as “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”

KIRK’S MURDER

Charlie Kirk was killed on September 10th while speaking with students at Utah Valley University in Orem.

Tyler Robinson, 22, allegedly fired a single shot at Kirk, according to officials.

Robinson turned himself in 33 hours later after confessing the crime to his family, Utah Governor Spencer Cox confirmed.

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Sept. 23 (UPI) — Nexstar Media Group will not air “Jimmy Kimmel, Live!” and joined the Sinclair Broadcast Group in pre-empting the ABC talk show when it is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.

Nexstar officials announced their decision a day after Sinclair said it also would pre-empt Kimmel’s show due to his falsely claiming the alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a MAGA supporter.

“We made a decision last week to pre-empt ‘Jimmy Kimmel, Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s’ ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse,” Nexstar officials said in a news release, as reported by NBC News.

“We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.”

Nexstar and Sinclair own a combined total of nearly 70 local stations that account for nearly a fourth of ABC stations, according to The New York Times.

Nexstar and Sinclair intend to air news programming instead of Kimmel’s talk show.

Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., wrote a letter to Nexstar Media Group executives that “demands answers” regarding why they are pre-empting “Jimmy Kimmel, Live!” on affiliate stations.

“The public owns the airwaves — not the FCC chairman, not [President] Donald Trump and not Nexstar,” McGovern said Monday in a press release.

“Local TV stations have a responsibility to serve the public interest — not advance political vendettas against those who express opinions the government doesn’t like,” he continued.

“Using the threat of license revocation to strong-arm a network into silencing a comedian is not only corrupt — it’s almost certainly unconstitutional.”

During his opening monologue on Sept. 15, Kimmel said, “The MAGA gang desperately [is] 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.”

ABC and its owner, the Walt Disney Corp., suspended his show indefinitely the next day but announced it would resume Tuesday night.

Kamala Harris picked her way through several sticky subjects in a Tuesday night TV interview, including her account of being ghosted by Gov. Gavin Newsom when she called for his support during her brief, unsuccessful 2024 presidential campaign.

On the eve of the public release of her book detailing that campaign, Harris spoke with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on her relationship with Newsom as well as the redistricting ballot measure Californians will vote on in November — and she also hailed “the power of the people” in getting Jimmy Kimmel back on ABC.

Kimmel was indefinitely suspended last week by the Walt Disney Co. over remarks he made about the suspect in the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. After fierce protests, consumers announcing subscription cancellations, and hundreds of celebrities speaking out against government censorship, Disney announced Monday that Kimmel would return on ABC the following day.

“Talk about the power being with the people and the people making that clear with their checkbooks,” Harris said of Kimmel’s return. “It spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction.”

Harris was speaking with Maddow about her new book, “107 Days,” which details her short sprint of a presidential campaign in 2024 after then-President Biden decided not to seek reelection.

The book discloses which Democrats immediately supported her to become the Democratic nominee, and which didn’t, notably Newsom. She wrote that, when she called, he texted her that he was hiking and would call her back but never did.

After Maddow raised the anecdote in the opening of the show, Harris said she had known Newsom “forever.”

“Gavin has a great sense of humor so, you know, he’s gonna be fine,” Harris said.

Newsom was icier when asked by a reporter about the interaction — or lack thereof — on Friday.

“You want to waste your time with this, we’ll do it,” Newsom said, adding that he was hiking when he received a call from an unknown number, even as he was trying to learn more about Biden’s decision not to run for reelection while also asking his team to craft a statement supporting Harris to be the Democratic nominee. “I assume that’s in the book as well — that, hours later, the endorsement came out.”

Harris brought up Newsom when asked about Proposition 50, the redistricting ballot measure championed by the governor and other California Democrats that voters will decide in November. If approved, the state’s congressional districts will be redrawn in an effort to boost Democratic seats in the house to counter efforts by President Trump to increase the number of Republicans elected in GOP-led states.

“Let me say about what [Newsom] is doing, redistricting, it is absolutely the right way to go. Part of what we’ve got to, I think, challenge ourselves to accept, is that we tend to play by the rules,” Harris said. “But I think this is a moment where you gotta fight fire with fire. And so what Gavin is doing, what the California Legislature is doing, what those who are supporting it are doing is to say, ‘You know what, you want to play, then let’s get in the field. Let’s get in the arena, and let’s do this.’ And I support that.”

But Harris was more cautious when asked about other electoral contests, notably the New York City mayoral race. Zohran Mamdani is the Democratic nominee and has large leads in the polls over other candidates in the race, including former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.

Asked whether she backed Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, Harris was measured.

“Look, as far as I’m concerned, he’s the Democratic nominee, and he should be supported,” Harris said, prompting Maddow to ask whether she endorsed him.

“I support the Democrat in the race, sure,” she replied. “But let me just say this, he’s not the only star. … I hope that we don’t so over-index on New York City that we lose sight of the stars throughout our country.”

Harris, who announced this summer that she would not run for California governor next year, demurred when asked about whether she would run for president for a third time in 2028.

“That’s not my focus right now,” she said.

Before Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning to ABC, the dialogue about the indefinite pause on his late-night show had continued to heat up.

Protesters packed the Hollywood block where Kimmel’s show is taped and sounded off both online and in public displays since the announcement of the suspension last week, and a horde of actors, writers, musicians and artists made their opinions on the matter clear.

Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Kerry Washington, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Maya Rudolph and more than 400 other artists signed an open letter organized by the American Civil Liberties Union calling for the defense of free speech in the wake of Kimmel’s benching.

The letter, which was published Monday, says Kimmel’s suspension marks “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation” and said that the government’s “attempt to silence its critics” runs “counter to the values our nation was built upon, and our Constitution guarantees.”

“Regardless of our political affiliation, or whether we engage in politics or not, we all love our country,” the letter continues. “We also share the belief that our voices should never be silenced by those in power — because if it happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”

The letter came together over the weekend, according to Jessica Weitz, director of artist and entertainment engagement at the ACLU. The list of names continued to grow after the letter was published, she said.

“Behind those signatures are teams of people who made their own calls to their networks to ask people to join, feeling strongly that this attack on free expression must be called out,” Weitz said in a statement to The Times. “When speech is being targeted with so much precision, it takes courage from every single person to speak out — and the creative community is meeting the urgency of this moment.”

Kimmel’s late-night program, which airs weeknights on ABC, has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The decision came after two major owners of ABC affiliates said they were dropping the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Late-night hosts were quick to respond to the news, with Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon each commenting on Kimmel’s situation in their Thursday episodes.

Over the weekend, HBO talk shows “Real Time With Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” weighed in on the controversy, beginning with Maher, who focused on Kimmel in his monologue Friday. Maher referred to “Politically Incorrect,” his late-night show that was canceled by ABC in 2002 after advertisers pulled out following a comment by the host about the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying they were “not cowardly.” Kimmel’s show replaced Maher’s slot.

“I got canceled before cancel even had a culture,” Maher said. “This s— ain’t new. It’s worse. We’ll get to that. But you know, ABC, they are steady. ABC stands for ‘Always be caving.’ So Jimmy, pal, I am with you. I support you. And on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland.”

Maher, who is a self-described “old-school liberal” and has been critical of the Democratic Party in recent years, said he disagreed with Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s suspected killer but believed he shouldn’t lose his job over them.

“You have the right to be wrong or to have any opinion you want, he said. “That’s what the 1st Amendment is all about.”

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver zeroed in on Kimmel’s suspension and the Federal Communications Commission during his Sunday night episode. He blasted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, directly addressed Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger and dove into the implications of the suspension in a nearly 30-minute-long segment.

“Kimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump’s attacks on free speech. He’s just the latest canary in the coal mine — a mine that, at this point, now seems more dead canary than coal,” Oliver said. “This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point, and not because comedians are important, but because we are not. If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air and do so in plain view, it can do a f— of a lot worse.”

In addressing Disney head Iger, Oliver urged him to understand that “giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away. It just makes him come back hungrier each time.”

Oliver said his show is “lucky” to be in a different situation than Kimmel’s because neither HBO or its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, owns broadcast networks, meaning they are “much less susceptible to pressure from the FCC.” He then cut to a news segment about how Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, is preparing a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which Oliver followed up with repeated expletives.

The women who host ABC’s “The View,” which is known for not shying away from hot-button topics, had been silent on the issue last week, but addressed Kimmel’s suspension Monday.

“Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel?” host Whoopi Goldberg said. “I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”

FCC head Carr has indicated that “The View” might be the next subject of a future investigation.

The panel, including Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin, also weighed in before Goldberg said, “We fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Monday accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr of unlawfully intimidating television broadcasters into toeing a conservative line in favor of President Trump, and urged him to reverse course.

In a letter to Carr, Bonta specifically cited ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air after Kimmel made comments about the killing of close Trump ally Charlie Kirk, and Carr demanded ABC’s parent company Disney “take action” against the late-night host.

Bonta wrote that California “is home to a great many artists, entertainers, and other individuals who every day exercise their right to free speech and free expression,” and that Carr’s demands of Disney threatened their 1st Amendment rights.

“As the Supreme Court held over sixty years ago and unanimously reaffirmed just last year, ‘the First Amendment prohibits government officials from relying on the threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech,’” Bonta wrote.

Carr and Trump have both denied playing a role in Kimmel’s suspension, alleging instead that it was due to his show having poor ratings.

After Disney announced Monday that Kimmel’s show would be returning to ABC, Bonta said he was “pleased to hear ABC is reversing course on its capitulation to the FCC’s unlawful threats,” but that his “concerns stand.”

He rejected Trump and Carr’s denials of involvement, and accused the administration of “waging a dangerous attack on those who dare to speak out against it.”

“Censoring and silencing critics because you don’t like what they say — be it a comedian, a lawyer, or a peaceful protester — is fundamentally un-American,” while such censorship by the U.S. government is “absolutely chilling,” Bonta said.

Bonta called on Carr to “stop his campaign of censorship” and commit to defending the right to free speech in the U.S., which he said would require “an express disavowal” of his previous threats and “an unambiguous pledge” that he will not use the FCC “to retaliate against private parties” for speech he disagrees with moving forward.

“News outlets have reported today that ABC will be returning Mr. Kimmel’s show to its broadcast tomorrow night. While it is heartening to see the exercise of free speech ultimately prevail, this does not erase your threats and the resultant suppression of free speech from this past week or the prospect that your threats will chill free speech in the future,” Bonta wrote.

After Kirk’s killing, Kimmel said during a monologue that the U.S. had “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.”

Carr responded on a conservative podcast, saying, “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Two major owners of ABC affiliates dropped the show, after which ABC said it would be “preempted indefinitely.”

Both Kirk’s killing and Kimmel’s suspension — which followed the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” by CBS — kicked off a tense debate about freedom of speech in the U.S. Both Kimmel and Colbert are critics of Trump, while Kirk was an ardent supporter.

Constitutional scholars and other 1st amendment advocates said the administration and Carr have clearly been exerting inappropriate pressure on media companies.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, said Carr’s actions were part of a broad assault on free speech by the administration, which “is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st amendment.”

Summer Lopez, the interim co-chief executive of PEN America, said this is “a dangerous moment for free speech” in the U.S. because of a host of Trump administration actions that are “pretty clear violations of the 1st Amendment” — including Carr’s threats but also statements about “hate speech” by Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and new Pentagon restrictions on journalists reporting on the U.S. military.

She said Kimmel’s return to ABC showed that “public outrage does make a difference,” but that “it’s important that we generate that level of public outrage when the targeting is of people who don’t have that same prominence.”

Carr has also drawn criticism from conservative corners, including from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FCC. He recently said on his podcast that he found it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

Cruz said he works closely with Carr, whom he likes, but that what Carr said was “dangerous as hell” and could be used down the line “to silence every conservative in America.”

Spider-Man and a Hollywood tour guide were having it out.

They stood right outside Jimmy Kimmel’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard, arguing about whether ABC was right to yank the host’s TV show off the air last week after he commented on the political response to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

“I like Kimmel!” said the Spider-Man impersonator, who wore pink Nike sneakers and leaned in close so he could hear through his thin, face-covering costume. “What he said is free speech.”

A tour bus drives past what was Jimmy Kimmel’s studio on Hollywood Boulevard on Sept. 18, 2025.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Todd Doten, a tour agent for Beverly Hills Tours of Hollywood, pushed back. He said he believed broadcasters are held to a different standard than private citizens, and that the Federal Communications Commission — which pushed to get Kimmel’s show canceled — “has somewhat of a point.”

The men verbally sparred beside singer Little Richard’s cracked star on the Walk of Fame. Then Doten patted the selfie-hawking superhero on the back and they parted ways amicably.

The scene on Friday afternoon captured the Hollywood that Kimmel embraced and aggressively promoted: Weird, gritty and surprisingly poignant.

Ever since he began filming at the El Capitan Entertainment Centre in 2003, Kimmel has been one of the famed neighborhood’s biggest ambassadors. He drew tourists to the storied Hollywood Boulevard, which — despite being home to the Academy Awards, TCL Chinese Theatre and the Walk of Fame — has long struggled with crime, homelessness and blight. He used his celebrity to help homeless youth and opened a donation center on his show’s backlot for victims of the January wildfires.

And he filmed many a sketch with Hollywood itself as the bizarro backdrop — including one returning bit called “Who’s High?” in which he tried to guess which of three pedestrians was stoned.

Protesters in front of Jimmy Kimmel’s theater a day after ABC pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely over comments he made about the response to right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s death.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Now, locals and entertainment industry officials alike worry what will happen if Kimmel’s show permanently disappears from a Hollywood still struggling to recover from the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023 and the COVID-19 pandemic that literally shut the neighborhood down. While his suspension has sparked a roiling debate over free speech rights nationwide, in this neighborhood, the impact is more close to home.

“A hostile act toward Jimmy Kimmel is a hostile act toward Hollywood itself and one of its great champions,” former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told The Times on Friday.

“Hollywood is both a place and an idea. It’s an industry and a geography. Jimmy is always big on both. He actually lives in Hollywood, at a time when not a lot of stars do.”

Miguel Aguilar, a fruit vendor who often sets up near Kimmel’s theater, said Friday that business was always better on the days “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” filmed because so many audience members bought his strawberries and pineapples doused in chamoy. He was stunned when a Times reporter told him the show had been suspended.

“Was it canceled by the government?” Aguilar asked. “We used to get a lot more customers [from the show]. That’s pretty scary.”

A man holding a sign advertising at a nearby diner said he worried about Kimmel’s crew, including the gaffers and makeup artists.

“How many people went down with Kimmel?” he asked.

And Daniel Gomez, who lives down the street, said he feared that nearby businesses will suffer from the loss of foot traffic from the show, for which audience members lined up all the way down the block.

“Tourists still will come to Hollywood no matter what, but a portion of that won’t be coming anymore,” Gomez said as he signed a large canvas outside the theater on which scores of fans and free speech advocates wrote messages about the show being axed.

Protesters in front of Jimmy Kimmel’s theater in Hollywood.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

“It’s pretty bad that he got shut down because of his comments,” Gomez added. “Comedians should be free to say whatever they want.”

In a joint statement, a coalition of Hollywood labor groups including the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees and Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, said the kind of political pressure that Kimmel faced as a broadcaster “chills free speech and threatens the livelihoods of thousands of working Americans.”

“At a time when America’s film and television industry is still struggling due to globalization and industry contraction, further unnecessary job losses only make a bad situation worse,” the statement read.

During his monologue Monday, Kimmel made remarks about Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused of fatally shooting Kirk. He said the “MAGA gang” was “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.”

Ingrid Salazar protests outside of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” studio on Thursday.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

While Kimmel’s remarks could be interpreted in different ways, Kirk’s supporters immediately accused the talk show host of claiming Robinson was a Trump ally, which many of Kimmel’s supporters reject. Kimmel himself has not publicly responded.

Kimmel also mocked President Trump for talking about the construction of a new White House ballroom after being asked how he was coping with the killing of his close ally.

Nexstar Media Group responded on Wednesday, saying it would pull the show from its ABC affiliate stations because of Kimmel’s comments. Walt Disney Co., which owns ABC, then announced it would suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely.

Nexstar’s decision to yank the show came after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, threatened to take action against ABC and urged local ABC affiliate stations to stand up the network.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr told right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Trump wrote on his Truth Social account: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

He also targeted late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, calling them “total losers.” He pressured NBC to cancel their shows, writing: “Do it NBC!!!”

The president this summer praised CBS’s decision to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” after this season, writing on Truth Social on July 18: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”

Pedestrians walk across the street from the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” theater a day after ABC has pulled the late-night host off air indefinitely.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

While the show is in limbo, it is unclear what will happen to Kimmel’s iconic theater in the historic former Hollywood Masonic Temple, a neoclassical 1921 building fronted by six imposing columns.

Disney owns the building, as well as the adjacent 1920s office building that contains the El Capitan Theatre and the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop. Kimmel’s production company, 12:05 AM Productions, occupies four floors — 26,000 square feet — in the six-story office building, according to real estate data provider CoStar.

Disney did not respond to a request for comment.

Garcetti, who long represented Hollywood on the L.A. City Council, said Kimmel was a major advocate for renovation of the old Masonic lodge and other revitalization Hollywood projects.

And after the Oscars returned for good to the Kodak Theatre (now Dolby Theatre) across the street in 2002 after several years outside of Hollywood, Kimmel “helped usher in what I call Hollywood’s second golden age, when the Academy Awards came back and people saw actual stars in nightclubs and restaurants,” Garcetti said.

When Garcetti was showing off the city to officials with the International Olympic Committee years ago in an effort to host the Games, Kimmel met their helicopter on the roof of a Hollywood hotel to brag about the neighborhood.

Jimmy Kimmel, host and executive producer of the late-night talk show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” celebrates as he receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Jan. 25, 2013.

(Reed Saxon/Associated Press)

At the 2013 Hollywood Chamber of Commerce ceremony awarding Kimmel a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Garcetti quipped: “When you came here to Hollywood Boulevard, this place was full of drug dealers and prostitutes, and you welcomed them with open arms.”

Kimmel joked that his parents brought him to the Walk of Fame as a 10-year-old and left him there to fend for himself.

“I’m getting emotional,” he said during the ceremony. “This is embarrassing. I feel like I’m speaking at my own funeral. This is ridiculous. People are going to pee on this star.”

Kimmel’s star is by his theater, near the stars for rapper Snoop Dogg — and Donald Duck.

On his show in May, pop star Miley Cyrus told Kimmel she developed a serious infection after filming on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last year, where she rolled around on the sidewalk. Part of her leg, she said, started to “disintegrate.”

“Have you been to the Walk of Fame in the middle of the night?” she asked.

“I live here,” Kimmel said.

“I thought it was my last day,” Cyrus responded.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered outside Kimmel’s theater in recent days, decrying the suspension of his show.

The cancellation occurred right after Dianne Hall and Michael Talbur of Kansas City got tickets to a live taping of the show and traveled to Los Angeles. So, they attended a protest Thursday instead.

Hall said she was expecting Kimmel’s monologue “to be something rude toward the [Kirk] family” but was surprised when she actually listened to it.

“I kept thinking, ‘Surely something bad was said for him to get fired,’ ” Hall said. “But it was nothing like that.”

Hollywood resident Ken Tullo said he’s “not a protesting type of guy, but enough’s enough” and he did not want his daughters to grow up with a fear of speaking freely.

“The current administration cannot laugh at themselves,” Tullo said, “and they don’t want anybody else to laugh.”

Times staff writer Roger Vincent contributed to this report.

Sept. 20 (UPI) — Sacramento Police officers arrested Anibal Hernandezsantana on Saturday morning for allegedly shooting at the occupied office of a local ABC affiliate.

Hernandezsantana, 64, was arrested on charges that accuse him of assault with a deadly weapon, shooting into an occupied building and negligent discharge of a firearm, KXTV reported.

“Thanks to the diligent work of our responding officers and investigators, the suspect vehicle was identified, leading to a resident in the 5400 block of Carlson Dr.,” the police department posted on X.

Police officers responded to reports of shots fired in the 400 block of Broadway in Sacramento just after 1:30 p.m. PDT on Friday and found evidence of at least three gunshots into a window of the KXTV building.

The FBI assisted the police department in determining a suspect and locating him, according to the Sacramento Police.

They made the arrest at about 6:15 p.m. on Friday, according to KCRA.

Hernandezsantana was booked at the Sacramento County Main Jail near midnight with bail set at $200,000 and was released on Saturday, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.

The motive for the shooting is under investigation, but it occurred within days of ABC announcing it was suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! over comments that Kimmel made during an opening monologue on Monday regarding the alleged shooter of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

More than 100 members of the Writers Guild of America East and their supporters jammed the sidewalk in front of Walt Disney Co.’s Lower Manhattan headquarters Friday to protest ABC’s decision to pull “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

The late-night program has been dark since Wednesday, when the Disney-owned network announced in a terse statement that it will be “preempted indefinitely.” The move followed decisions by two major owners of ABC affiliates to drop the show because of Kimmel’s remarks about the suspect in the shooting death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Members of the union, which represents TV and film writers, marched with signs calling the move an attack on free speech and accusing Walt Disney Co. executives of lacking backbone.

Among the messages: “Disney and ABC Capitulation and Censorship,” “Always Be Cowards,” “Absolute Bull— Cowards” and “Disney/ABC Bows to Trump Extortion.” There were chants of “Bring Jimmy back.”

The demonstration reflected anger building in the creative community over Kimmel’s removal, which Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr called for during a podcast interview that aired on Wednesday.

Carr said if action was not taken against Kimmel, there could be consequences for the TV stations that carry his show.

On Monday’s show, Kimmel seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican. He said MAGA supporters “are 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.”

The remarks prompted a widespread conservative backlash on social media, including demands for Kimmel’s firing. Kimmel, who has expressed sympathy for Kirk’s family online, has not yet commented on his removal.

President Trump has also said that late-night hosts who are critical of his administration should be banished from the airwaves. Trump cheered ABC’s decision, as he did the recent cancellation of CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

Kimmel remains off the air and has had discussions with Disney executives about how to bring the show back on the air. But his future with the network remains uncertain.

Greg Iwinski, a late-night TV writer and council member of the WGA East, said the threat of pulling a broadcast license is a dangerous weapon that can be used on any program and ultimately chill free expression.

“You can use that for any broadcast network anywhere,” Iwinski said. “Any late-night show, daytime show, game show or sitcom — any show you don’t like. Everything is under threat that is on network TV.”

Iwinski warned that ABC’s actions will only invite the Trump administration to exert more control over the broadcast airwaves.

“What if a relationship on a drama doesn’t fit the values of Donald Trump?” he said. “What if it’s not racially representative of what he thinks — ‘Well, we’re going to pull your licenses’ — all of that is on the table.”

The WGA East members were joined by local government officials supporting their cause, including New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

Statements of protest over ABC’s moves are coming from all corners of the entertainment industry, including from Michael Eisner, the former Disney chief who preceded Bob Iger’s first run in the job.

“Where has all the leadership gone?” Eisner wrote Friday on X. “If not for university presidents, law firm managing partners, and corporate chief executives standing up against bullies, who then will step up for the first amendment?”

Eisner said ABC’s action is “yet another example of out of control intimidation” by the FCC.

“Maybe the Constitution should have said, ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, except in one’s political or financial self-interest.’” Eisner added. “By-the-way, for the record, this ex-CEO finds Jimmy Kimmel very talented and funny.”

Disney did not immediately comment on Eisner’s post.

Damon Lindelof, the Emmy-winning co-creator of the hit ABC series “Lost,” said in an Instagram post Wednesday that he would no longer work for Disney or ABC unless Kimmel is reinstated.

A major Republican voice weighed in on Friday as well, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) saying the FCC chair’s threats are “dangerous as hell” and compared them to organized crime tactics.

Carr, who has been in lockstep with Trump on matters concerning the media, has said that stations have the right to pull the show if owners believe the content conflicts with community standards.

“Broadcast TV stations have always been required by their licenses to operate in the public interest — that includes serving the needs of their local communities,” he wrote Thursday on X. “And broadcasters have long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities’ values. I am glad to see that many broadcasters are responding to their viewers as intended.”

Staff who work on Jimmy Kimmel Live! must wait to find out if they still have jobs after the show was axed this week over comments that angered President Trump

Staff who work on Jimmy Kimmel Live! have been given an update on their jobs after the show was pulled off air following comments host Jimmy made about Charlie Kirk, the US political activist shot dead earlier this month.

The 57-year-old TV host and comedian’s show was axed after he suggested Kirk’s suspected shooter Tyler Robinson, 22, was Republican and that the ‘MAGA gang’ were “working very hard to capitalise on the murder of Charlie Kirk”.

During Monday’s broadcast, Kimmel opened the show saying: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterise this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

He then went on to mock President Trump’s response to a question from the press about how he was mourning Kirk’s death, which lead to the world leader bafflingly talking about the White House’s new ballroom construction instead.

READ MORE: Jimmy Kimmel’s wife warns ‘please don’t read this’ in ‘regretful’ Donald Trump move

Kirk was killed aged 31 as he spoke at an event at Utah Valley University on September 10. Robinson has since appeared in court, facing charges of aggravated murder over his death.

ABC, which airs Kimmel’s show, said it would not be showing Jimmy Kimmel Live! “for the foreseeable future”. While the network’s affiliate group, Nexstar Communications, called Kimmel’s comments “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.

Disney, who owns ABC, wanted Kimmel to apologise for his comments around the killer of Charlie Kirk. While Kimmel had informed Disney bosses that he planned to address his remarks on Wednesday’s episode, he said he was not willing to say sorry.

Though the show has been axed for now and staff were seen packing up and leaving the Hollywood studio this week, it’s reported they will still be paid while an agreement for the late night talk show is reached, suggesting it could well be back on air soon.

According to Deadline, a note was sent out to staff this week to inform them of the move as talks between the company and Kimmel continue.

What Kimmel will do next remains to be seen, but he is said to be popular with colleagues and is not thought to want any decision he makes to negatively impact them, particularly after many were hit by writers’ strikes, LA wildfires and the pandemic in recent years.

But the decision to axe Kimmel’s show will likely please one person more than any other. Celebrating on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED.

“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.

“That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”

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The fierce war of words between President Trump and ABC’s “The View” has long been a staple of the daytime talk show known for its spirited discussions about politics and pop culture.

But the signature “Hot Topics” segment that frequently blasts Trump has suddenly gone cold as speculation escalates that the Trump administration is considering taking action against “The View.”

Show host Whoopi Goldberg and her all-female panel has been conspicuously silent on ABC’s suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the wake of blistering backlash over Kimmel’s comments about slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. The late-night host said during the monologue on his show Monday that the “MAGA gang” was characterizing Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, “as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has indicated that “The View” might be investigated to see whether it qualifies as “a bona fide news program,” which would exempt it from the agency’s equal time rule.

The absence of commentary since the news about Kimmel broke on Wednesday has been particularly glaring after late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart criticized the decision by the Walt Disney Co.-owned network on their respective programs Thursday night. The network’s action has been largely condemned in entertainment circles, sparking major protests outside Disney headquarters and Kimmel’s Hollywood Boulevard studio.

MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace on Thursday called out the silence of “The View” during her “Deadline: White House” show, noting Walt Disney Co. had previously pledged $15 million to Trump’s library to resolve a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate statements about Trump by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.

“Those women are fearless, and the story didn’t come up,” Wallace said. “It’s obviously being felt and acted upon at ABC more broadly.”

Trump’s bitter campaign against “The View” and his desire to cancel it was highlighted last July after co-host Joy Behar declared that Trump was “so jealous” of former President Obama.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers fired back in a statement sent to entertainment venues calling Behar “an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome … She should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.”

In sharp contrast to the current hush about the president, Goldberg and her co-hosts unleashed a vicious attack on Trump after he blasted the show during a campaign rally last year.

“So I watched that stupid ‘View’ where you have these really dumb people,” Trump told the large crowd, which responded with boos.

Saying that “politics can do strange things to demented people,” he relayed how he had hired Goldberg as a comedian before his political career, “and her mouth was so foul. She was filthy dirty, disgusting … I said I would never hire her again.”

The opening segment of “The View” the following day showed the hosts entering as Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” played.

Addressing Trump, Goldberg said, “As a matter of fact, I was filthy, and I stand on that … How dumb are you? You hired me four times … and you didn’t know what you were getting? How dumb are you?”

Co-host and senior ABC News legal correspondent and analyst Sunny Hostin weighed in: “Donald Trump, I want to thank you for personally (sic) telling so many lies and committing so many alleged crimes and providing us with material on a daily basis. You help us do our jobs, and I am so appreciative.”

Noting that she was a former prosecutor, she added, “I admit, I may not have spent as much time in a courtroom as you have … And like Madam Vice President Kamala Harris, I’ve had a history of prosecuting sex offenders, so thank you for keeping people like us in business.”

Hostin concluded with an invitation to Trump to come on “The View: “I’ll even give you a free ‘View’ mug — not to be confused with a mug shot. Because that’s your area.”

These are dark times, the average cynic might argue.

But do not despair.

If you focus on the positive, rather than the negative, you’ll have to agree that the United States of America is on top and still climbing.

Yes, protesters gathered Thursday outside “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in Hollywood to denounce ABC’s suspension of the host and President Trump’s threat to revoke licenses from networks that criticize him, despite repeated vows by Trump and top deputies to defend free speech.

You can call it hypocrisy.

I call it moxie.

And by the way, demonstrators were not arrested or deported, and the National Guard was not summoned (as far as I know).

Do you see what I mean? Just tilt your head back a bit, and you can see sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Let’s take the president’s complaint that he read “someplace” that the networks “were 97% against me.” Some might see weakness in that, or thin skin. Others might wonder where the “someplace” was that the president discovered his TV news favorability rating stands at 3%, given that he could get caught drowning puppies and cheating at golf and still get fawning coverage from at least one major network.

But Trump had good reason to be grumpy. He was returning from a news conference in London, where he confused Albania and Armenia and fumbled the pronunciation of Azerbaijan, which sounded a bit more like Abracadabra.

It’s not his fault all those countries all start with an A. And isn’t there a geography lesson in it for all of us, if not a history lesson?

We move on now to American healthcare, and the many promising developments under way in the nation’s capital, thanks to Trump’s inspired choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as chief of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Those who see the glass half empty would argue that Kennedy has turned the department into a morgue, attempting to kill COVID-19 vaccine research, espousing backwater views about measles, firing public health experts, demoralizing the remaining staff and rejecting decades worth of biomedical advances despite having no medical training or expertise.

But on the plus side, Kennedy is going after food dyes.

It’s about time, and thank you very much.

I’m not sure what else will be left in a box of Trix or Lucky Charms when food coloring is removed, but I am opposed to fake food coloring, unless it’s in a cocktail, and I’d like to think most Americans are with me on this.

Also on the bright side: Kennedy is encouraging Americans to do chin-ups and pushups for better health.

Are you going to sit on the radical left side of your sofa and gripe about what’s happened to your country, or get with the program and try to do a few pushups?

OK, so Trump’s efforts to shut down the war on cancer is a little scary. As the New York Times reported, on the chopping block is development of a new technique for colorectal cancer prevention, research into immunotherapy cancer prevention, a study on improving childhood cancer survival rates, and better analysis of pre-malignant breast tissue in high-risk women.

But that could all be fake news, or 97% of it, at least. And if it’s not?

All that research and all those doctors and scientists can apply for jobs in other countries, just like all the climate scientists whose work is no longer a national priority. The more who leave, the better, because the brain drain is going to free up a lot of real estate and help solve the housing crisis.

Thank you, President Trump.

Is it any wonder that Trump has been seen recently wearing a MAGA-red hat that says “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!”

Well, mostly everything.

Climate change appears to be real.

The war in Ukraine didn’t end as promised.

The war in the Middle East is still raging.

Grocery prices did not go down on day one, and some goods cost more because of tariffs.

As for the promise of a new age of American prosperity, there’s no rainbow in sight yet, although there is a pot of gold in the White House, with estimates of billions in profits for Trump family businesses since he took office,

But for all of that, along with an approval rating that has dropped since he took office in January, Trump exudes confidence. So much so that he proudly wears that bright red hat, which he was giving out in the Oval office, and which retails for $25.

It’s another ingenious economic stimulation plan.

And there’s an important lesson here for all of us.

Never admit defeat, and when things don’t go your way, stand tall, adjust your hat, and find someone to blame.

We should all have our own hats made.

Doctors could wear hats saying they’ve never gotten a diagnosis wrong.

Dentists could wear hats saying they’ve never pulled the wrong tooth.

TV meteorologists could wear hats saying — well, maybe not — that they’ve gotten every forecast right.

I’m having hats made as you read this.

LOPEZ IS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!

Please don’t have me fired, Mr. President, if you disagree.

As for Jimmy Kimmel, I’m offering this idea free of charge:

If you ever get your job back, you, your sidekick Guillermo, and the entire studio audience should be wearing hats.

KIMMEL WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!

[email protected]

NEW YORK — Two ABC affiliate owners spoke out against late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel ahead of ABC’s decision to suspend the presenter over comments he made about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Their comments highlight the influence that local TV station owners have on national broadcasters such as Disney-owned ABC.

Here are key facts about the two companies.

Nexstar Media Group, based in Irving, Texas, operates 28 ABC affiliates. It said it would pull Kimmel’s show starting Wednesday. Kimmel’s comments about Kirk’s death were “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse,” said Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division.

The company owns or partners with more than 200 stations in 116 U.S. markets, and owns broadcast networks the CW and NewsNation, as well as the political website the Hill and nearly a third of the Food Network.

It hopes to get even bigger. Last month, it announced a $6.2-billion deal to buy TEGNA Inc., which owns 64 other TV stations.

The deal would require the Federal Communications Commission to change rules limiting the number of stations a single company can own. The FCC’s chair, Brendan Carr, has expressed openness to changing the rule.

Sinclair Broadcast Group

Sinclair Broadcast Group, based in Hunt Valley, Md., operates 38 local ABC affiliates. On Wednesday the company, which has a reputation for a conservative viewpoint in its broadcasts, called on Kimmel to apologize to Kirk’s family and make a “meaningful personal donation” to the activist’s political organization, Turning Point USA. Sinclair said its ABC stations will air a tribute to Kirk on Friday in Kimmel’s time slot.

Sinclair owns, operates or provides services to 178 TV stations in 81 markets affiliated with all major broadcast networks and owns Tennis Channel.

Controversies

Sinclair made headlines in 2018 when a video that stitched together dozens of news anchors for Sinclair-owned local stations reading identical statements decrying “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing the country” went viral. Sinclair didn’t disclose that it ordered the anchors to read the statement.

Nexstar operates similarly.

Danilo Yanich, professor of public policy at the University of Delaware, said the company is the “biggest duplicator” of news content today His research showed Nexstar stations duplicated broadcasts more than other affiliate owners.

Affiliate influence

Lauren Herold, an editor of the forthcoming book “Local TV,” said the web of companies involved in getting Americans their television shows is “relatively unknown” to most viewers, though their influence has been made known for decades.

Often, Herold said, that’s been when local affiliates have balked at airing something they viewed as controversial, such as the episode of the 1990s comedy “Ellen” in which Ellen DeGeneres’ character came out as gay.

“It’s not a complete oddity,” Herold said. “I think what’s more alarming about this particular incident to me is the top-down nature of it.”

Whereas past flare-ups between affiliates and their parent networks have often involved individual local TV executives, Herold pointed to the powerful voices at play in Kimmel’s suspension: Disney CEO Bob Iger, the FCC’s chair Carr, as well as Sinclair and Nexstar.

“The FCC kind of pinpointing particular programs to cancel is concerning to people who advocate for television to be a forum for free discussion and debate,” Herold said.

Jasmine Bloemhof, a media strategist who has worked with local stations, including ones owned by Sinclair and Nexstar, said consolidation has given such companies “enormous influence.” Controversies like the latest involving Kimmel, she said, “reveal the tension between Hollywood-driven programming and the values of everyday Americans.”

“Networks may push one agenda, but affiliates owned by companies like Sinclair and Nexstar understand they serve conservative-leaning communities across the country,” Bloemhof said. “And that friction is bound to surface.”

Anderson and Sedensky write for the Associated Press.