[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Jimmy Kimmel is the Left’s latest martyr for allegedly being deprived of his right to free speech after Disney, the parent company of ABC, decided to take his late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air “indefinitely.” It has turned out that “indefinitely” meant just a few days.
It all started when Mr. Kimmel said on his September 15th program that “the MAGA gang” was trying to characterize Tyler Robinson, the alleged murderer of Charlie Kirk, “as anything other than one of them.” Mr. Kirk was the highly admired conservative head of Turning Point USA.
This outright lie infuriated many members of the viewing audience who were still mourning Charlie Kirk’s death. In response, two major owners of local affiliated stations, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced that they were pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air at least for the time being. Not only did Kimmel refuse to apologize for his blatantly hateful disinformation that was broadcast nationwide over the public airwaves. He was preparing to double down with a self-righteous monologue that Disney executives feared would add more fuel to the fire. Against that background and the expressions of displeasure from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the granting of licenses to local broadcast stations, Disney decided to have ABC pull Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air.
Leftist politicians, media, and activists reacted with fury at what they characterized as a gross violation of the First Amendment’s protection of the right of free speech at the behest of President Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. They now have egg on their faces after Disney announced that Mr. Kimmel will be returning to the air as early as September 23rd – less than a week after he was taken off the air.
“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,” Disney said in a statement released on September 22nd. “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.”
So much for the Left’s hysteria over what they called the latest example of President Trump’s authoritarianism.
In any case, their protests ring hollow. When leftists do not like what they hear, they label the words “violence” and seek retribution. They have shut down conservative speaking events on college campuses and threatened the speakers. They have demanded the removal of content on social media that contradicts their party line, with the help of pressure the Biden administration exerted on high tech social media companies.
Tyler Robinson evidently decided to take his fellow leftists’ censorship of speech they disagreed with to the most extreme level. He allegedly murdered Charlie Kirk, a conservative spokesperson who advocated for free and open debate on college campuses and was an exemplar of the robust exercise of First Amendment rights.
Democrat politicians have tried to divert public attention from Mr. Kirk’s tragic murder by casting Jimmy Kimmel as the victim for being taken off the air because of what he said about “the MAGA gang” and Charlie Kirk. Suddenly, they are casting themselves as champions of free speech.
For example, Democrat California Governor Gavin Newsom denounced the decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air, blaming the GOP who, according to the governor and possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2028, “does not believe in free speech.”
It turns out that Governor Newsom does not believe in free speech when it does not suit him. He has demanded that Fox News suspend Greg Gutfeld, the popular Fox News host of the primetime show Gutfeld!, because he did not like what Mr. Gutfeld had to say.
Even worse, Governor Newsom signed censorship laws last year aimed at prohibiting or restricting what the governor characterized as AI-generated misinformation in election campaigns.
A senior U.S. District Court Judge John A. Mendez blocked enforcement of the legislation’s prohibition, writing that the law served as “a blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles the free and unfettered exchange of ideas.” He declared that “counter speech is a less restrictive alternative to prohibiting videos such as those posted by Plaintiff, no matter how offensive or inappropriate someone may find them.”
So much for Governor Newsom’s professed belief in free speech when it comes to content that he labels as disinformation!
Democrat California Rep. Eric Swalwell complained about the removal of Jimmy Kimmel’s show and even wore a Jimmy Kimmel Live! hat to signify his support for Kimmel. “I was a guest on the Jimmy Kimmel show,” Rep. Swalwell said. “He, every night has a right to come into any house that wants to watch and entertain Americans just as Greg Gutfeld on Fox has a right to be not funny and go on his network and entertain Americans.” He went on to declare that “frankly it should shake every American that the President of the United States is out there firing comedians who make fun of him. That’s not who we are and every American should care and stand up to this.”
First, while President Trump was certainly happy that Kimmel was taken off the air and strongly expressed his opinion to that effect, it was Disney’s business decision to do so under pressure from key network affiliates who had heard from angry viewers. Moreover, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show was plunging in ratings and turning into a white elephant. But what matters here is that Jimmy Kimmel Live! is returning to ABC’s lineup, whether President Trump and FCC Commissioner Carr like it or not.
Second, and most importantly, Rep. Swalwell does not believe in free speech when it comes to content that he considers to be disinformation. He has suggested that he would be open to congressional oversight of Fox News in light of accusations that the network was disseminating disinformation. Swalwell even went further in suggesting consideration of action by the federal government that would ban U.S. troops from watching Fox News.
Minnesota Governor and failed Democrat vice president nominee Tim Walz absurdly compared Disney’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air to what he called “North Korea-style stuff” intended to avoid offending President Trump.
Wrong, Governor Walz. Jimmy Kimmel lied on national TV when he falsely claimed that Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer was one of “the MAGA gang.” Kimmel’s hate speech and disinformation are protected by the First Amendment but not from the consequences meted out by his private business employer, which reversed its initial decision anyway after reaching a mutually agreeable resolution.
Moreover, Governor Walz does not practice what he preaches. During the 2024 presidential campaign, vice presidential candidate Walz proclaimed: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”
Government restrictions on hate speech and misinformation are protected speech under the First Amendment, whether coming from the Left or the Right. But Walz is typical of the leftists who are all about “rules for thee but not for me.”
Illinois’ Democrat Governor JB Pritzker is another hypocrite. In response to the removal of Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air, he said, “I do not understand why people are not standing up and pushing back when they ought to, because what’s at stake here is free speech, it’s our Constitution and our way of life.”
Two years ago, Governor Pritzker displayed his own contempt for the First Amendment. “You have a right to free speech, but you don’t have a right to lie,” he said during a CNN interview. He was defending Illinois’ law he signed in 2023, which targeted the speech of crisis pregnancy centers that was allegedly deceptive. U.S. District Court Judge Iain Johnston issued an order blocking its enforcement, characterizing the law as “likely classic content and viewpoint discrimination prohibited by the First Amendment.” He said that it represented “a blatant example” of the government deciding “whose speech is sanctionable and whose speech is immunized.”
Governor Pritzker, a fierce critic of President Trump, was against full First Amendment protection before he now says he is all for it.
Former President Barack Obama weighed into the Jimmy Kimmel controversy just hours after ABC, at Disney’s direction, yanked his show from the air. In a post on X, Mr. Obama called it “precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”
Mr. Obama should heed the advice in the proverb, “Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” The Obama administration’s record on protecting the press’s First Amendment rights was abysmal. The Obama Justice Department persecuted a Fox News reporter for doing his job. It collected Fox News reporter James Rosen’s telephone and email records and conducted surveillance of his movements at the State Department. Even worse, it falsely accused him of being a possible “co-conspirator” in a criminal investigation of a news leak to justify a search warrant. This action followed the Obama Justice Department’s seizure of two months worth of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press, which AP’s chief executive officer called “unconstitutional.”
Even the New York Times was outraged at the Obama administration’s abuse of power against the Fox News reporter. “With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible ‘co-conspirator’ in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news,” the New York Times editorial board wrote.
Government authorities of any political persuasion should not coerce a private party to punish or suppress free speech the authorities disagree with or find offensive, including by threatening adverse regulatory action if the private party does not comply. But that is not what happened in this case.
Disney made an independent decision to temporarily pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air for business reasons to let emotions cool down. It then decided, days later after engaging in productive talks with Mr. Kimmel, to return his show to ABC’s lineup. Whether all affiliated local stations will go along and broadcast his show remains to be seen and will depend on how they perceive their viewing audience’s reaction. Sinclair, which owns or controls thirty-nine ABC affiliate stations, is balking so far.
In the final analysis, it is the marketplace, not coercion from the Trump administration, that will be the final arbiter. That is how capitalism works in a free society, something that the Left refuses to accept.
