There is no reason to cry for Jimmy Kimmel after the indefinite suspension of his show. He did it to himself through his unfunny, sanctimonious lecturing and poor ratings.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been indefinitely suspended by ABC following his comments about Charlie Kirk’s death, and Democrats everywhere are crying that this is a violation of free speech by the Trump administration. Not that liberals will believe it, but the decision likely had nothing to do with the Federal Communications Commission and everything to do with syndicates not wanting to lose viewers over Kimmel’s comments.

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It also has to do with what Kimmel actually said. He chose to dip his toes in the water of the conspiracy theory that Kirk was killed by a right-wing supporter of President Donald Trump. Specifically, Kimmel said, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the [Make America Great Again] gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.” It is a weird thing to say precisely because the 22-year-old “kid” was anything other than part of the MAGA gang. He was a left-wing lunatic who shot Kirk because he thought Kirk was hateful, wrote “Hey fascist! Catch!” on one of the bullet casings, and had a transgender “girlfriend.”

Kimmel lied to his audience, and syndicates knew they would have to pay the price of a boycott of their networks, so ABC stemmed the bleeding by suspending Kimmel’s show. Kimmel wasn’t censored. He wasn’t taken off the air by Trump’s FCC. He lied to the public and was going to cost his bosses money, so he was (temporarily) given the axe.

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Kimmel’s regular political soliloquies and lack of any comedy that appeals to anyone outside an obnoxious liberal bubble also set the stage for his suspension. Kimmel’s show is some 650,000 viewers behind Stephen Colbert’s, which CBS announced it would permanently take off the air next year. Colbert’s show was especially bombing among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic that advertisers are chasing, and Kimmel’s “strongest performance in a year” put him just 1,000 viewers ahead of Colbert among those viewers.

If the finances for Kimmel’s show are anything like Colbert’s, then he is already losing his boss’s money. Between the worse ratings, his overpoliticized “comedy,” and lying to the public about the facts of a major political assassination, this suspension was the result of Kimmel’s ego and toxic politics, not any sort of First Amendment violation.