ABC and its affiliates may have pulled the trigger, but they did so with FCC guns pointed at their own heads if they did not.
T he national debate over free speech in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination escalated on Wednesday night after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely following the blowback from his comments suggesting that the accused shooter was actually “MAGA” rather than a left-winger.
Many media figures who jumped on the story could not bother to categorize the basic facts properly, which is something I want to lay out here.
On CNN, a somber Erin Burnett said, “The job should be to speak truth to power, even when there are people who don’t like the word ‘truth’ anymore.” But there was no “truth” spoken by Jimmy Kimmel. In reality, he lied in an attempt to smear all supporters of President Trump.
Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
While he never explicitly said the words “the shooter was MAGA,” that’s the natural implication of what he said.
Ideally, what should have gone down, especially after more evidence came out demonstrating that the shooter came from the left, was that Kimmel should have gone on air the next night to apologize for getting it wrong, and to correct the record. If a late-night comic is going to deviate from telling jokes to reporting on news events, he should take responsibility.
That didn’t happen.
Per sources cited by the Hollywood Reporter, Kimmel planned to argue on air that his comments were taken out of context, but he “was not planning on apologizing. He felt that what he said did not require an apology.”
Two major ABC affiliates, Nexstar and Sinclair, both announced that they would stop carrying the show for an unspecified period of time. Nexstar released the following explanation:
Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located. Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.
The pressure from these affiliates then forced the hand of Disney/ABC, which wasn’t going to produce a show that would not be seen in large swathes of the country.
If this were the whole story, especially given the added reality that late-night comedy shows are in decline and that Kimmel’s ratings are even lower than the canceled Stephen Colbert, I would probably come down on the side that it was okay. In other words, if Kimmel were given the option of doing the honorable thing and apologizing and issuing a correction, and he refused, there is no reason the network should continue to produce his failing show.
However, that is not the whole story.
The move came in the face of threats from Trump and Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC.
In late August, Trump said he supported the FCC revoking the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC over their overwhelmingly critical coverage of his administration. This week, he was asked to respond to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments about the government’s ability to police “hate speech.” Instead of affirming that there is no such thing as a “hate speech” carve-out to the First Amendment, Trump noted that the reporter was from ABC, which engaged in “hate” through its critical coverage of him, and said “maybe they’ll have to go after you.”
Carr, getting more specific on Benny Johnson’s podcast, attacked the Kimmel segment and said “there are avenues here for the FCC.” He noted that broadcasters are special because they have a license granted by the FCC “that comes with an obligation to operate in the public interest.” Carr insisted that they wanted enforcement of the public interest rule to be “reinvigorated.” He then warned, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” He went on to state explicitly that “these companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Beyond the power FCC has over broadcasting licenses, Nexstar, the first ABC affiliate to pull the plug, is in the midst of trying to complete a merger with local broadcaster TEGNA that requires FCC approval (with the application expected by September 30).
Taken together, it’s clear that the decision to sideline Kimmel cannot be merely dismissed as purely the actions of the private broadcasters. Instead, this was an example of the government using its powerful leverage over broadcasters to get them to take action. ABC and its affiliates may have pulled the trigger, but they did so with FCC guns pointed at their own heads if they did not.
This action is ultimately a victory for a certain ideological strain on the right that has been at war in recent years against limited-government impulses. Traditional conservatives still have a disinclination to leverage government power over individuals and businesses. But another element of the right (call it populist or MAGA or New Right) believes that the left will always wield government as a club when Democrats have power, so it would represent unilateral disarmament for Republicans to behave any differently. Indeed, when they had the opportunity, Democrats leaned on Big Tech companies to stifle conservative speech in the name of fighting “misinformation” — leading to the deplatforming, demonetization, and shadow-banning of conservatives or other news and commentary they didn’t like.
While I am obviously an opponent of the efforts by the previous administration to suppress conservative speech, I still believe that the proper response is to push to allow more speech rather than create an excuse for the radical left to go even further in efforts to crack down on dissent the next time they get the chance. I’m sure there are many Democrats out there who can think of creative ways to deploy the FCC’s “reinvigorated” use of the public interest rule or to pull other levers to target conservatives. If anything, instead of reinvigorating the FCC, conservatives should be looking to abolish it. In a free society, people should not feel that their ability to comment on issues of the day will vary based on which party is in power.