On Monday afternoon, ABC announced it had decided far-left, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel would be allowed to return to his eponymous show Tuesday night, six days after the shocking and welcome suspension for his vile comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination and spreading a conspiracy theory that the suspect might have been a Make America Great Again supporter.
ABC said this in a statement, which tried to have it both ways in both condemning and praising Kimmel:
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.
As a reminder, here was what Kimmel said on the September 15 show that, even by the admission of The New York Times, our Alex Christy helped go viral and subsequently drove outrage from advertisers, local affiliates that forced Disney’s hand:
CNN was ebullient in sharing the news about their triumphant hero, who’s a personal friend to many in the liberal media (including The Lead host Jake Tapper):
Former ABC correspondent Terry Moran was on-set and equally enthused:
Stelter alluded this, but it’s worth repeating: At this moment, what will the ABC affiliates — particularly those belonging to Nexstar and Sinclair — do?
Sinclair itself said in a statement last week that they will demand “Mr. Kimmel…issue a formal apology to the Kirk family” and “ask[ed] Mr. Kimmel to make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA.”
“Regardless of ABC’s plans for the future of the program, Sinclair intends to not return ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ to air until we are confident that appropriate steps have been taken to uphold the standards expected of a national broadcast platform,” they added.
Stay tuned to NewsBusters for the latest. This story will be updated.
