The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk is still reverberating across America. On Sept. 17, Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC’s late-night talk show, became the latest casualty in our post-Kirk world.
The network announced it was suspending Kimmel indefinitely because of his Sept. 15 monologue. “The MAGA gang,” he observed, “[is] 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. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
He continued, referring to President Donald Trump casting blame on left-wing groups for Kirk’s death. “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Was what Kimmel said tasteless? Perhaps. But speech that is tasteless has always been protected by the First Amendment.
You would never know that from the reactions of the Trump administration to Kimmel’s monologue. “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,” the president crowed on Truth Social. “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.”
Referring to NBC’s late-night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, Trump added, “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT.”
As disturbing as Trump’s reaction was, what Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr said before ABC announced Kimmel’s suspension was even worse, and underscored the administration’s convoluted view of free speech.
As disturbing as Trump’s reaction was, what Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr said before ABC announced Kimmel’s suspension was even worse, and underscored the administration’s convoluted view of free speech. The late-night host’s comments, Carr said, were “the sickest conduct possible.”
Carr didn’t stop there, nor did he honor America’s free speech tradition, which says that we should respond to speech we find offensive with more speech. Instead he threatened to deploy the power of the federal government against Disney, ABC’s parent company, if it didn’t do something about Kimmel.
“This,” Carr suggested, “is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney.” Then, in a truly chilling remark, he added, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“These companies,” he continued, “can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”
Carr proceeded to essentially foretell Kimmel’s fate. “There are calls for Kimmel to be fired. I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this,” he said, before claiming, “The FCC could make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core fundamental fact, a very important matter.”
Referencing the FCC’s authority over broadcasters, Carr argued that “Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking their content, it’s time for them to step up and say this, you know, garbage to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future, isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities. But, this sort of status quo is obviously not acceptable where we are.”
What is (or should be) truly unacceptable in a free society are the kind of threats Carr made. Just last year, a unanimous Supreme Court explained why.
The National Rifle Association brought a case alleging that threats made by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), under the leadership of Maria Vullo, violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech and resulted in private entities severing ties with the group to stifle firearm advocacy. In a unanimous decision, the court held that “Vullo was free to criticize the NRA and pursue the conceded violations of New York insurance law. She could not wield her power, however, to threaten enforcement actions against DFS-regulated entities in order to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor explained, “A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead. In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”
Sotomayor suggested that when courts evaluate a claim that a government official threatened reprisal against such expression, they should consider “whether, based on the totality of the circumstances, the government official’s actions could reasonably be understood as a threat of adverse consequences aimed at coercing a private party to punish or suppress someone else’s speech on the government’s behalf. Factors to consider include the official’s regulatory authority, the language and tone of the communications, how they were perceived, and whether they referred to adverse consequences.”
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What Carr said clearly would fall within those parameters. But rather than fight back, ABC and its parent company Disney, caved. They did exactly what he suggested.
The harm from Carr’s threat and the network’s acquiescence is enormous.
No one knows this better than Carr. Prior to assuming his current role as Trump’s go-to guy for intimidating the media, he was a fierce defender of free speech and critic of regulatory overreach by the FCC. “Should the government censor speech it doesn’t like?” he posted on Twitter in 2019. “Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the ‘public interest.’”
A year later, when Democratic congressmen targeted broadcasters over their coverage of COVID-19 and the 2020 election, Carr characterized their behavior as “a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys.”
He didn’t stop there. In April 2021, when congressional Democrats called on the FCC to reject the sale of a Spanish-language radio station in South Florida, Carr said their demand “crosses a line drawn by the First Amendment. The FCC has no business doing the Democrats’ bidding or using our regulatory process to censor political opinions.”
“This,” he noted, “is a deeply troubling transgression of free speech and the FCC’s status as an independent agency. I call on my FCC colleagues to join me in publicly rejecting this attempt to inject partisan politics into our licensing process. Doing so would go a long way in assuring the public that the FCC will review this proposed transaction free from political pressure and according to our long-standing rules and precedents.”
In 2024, as the free speech advocacy group FIRE reported, “Carr warned that the United States does not need ‘the FCC to operate as the nation’s speech police.’” He added, “’If there ever were a time for a federal agency to show restraint when it comes to the regulation of political speech and to ensure that it is operating within the statutorily defined bounds of its authority, now would be that time.’”
Carr once even defended political satire, saying it “is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech.”
The chairman’s turnabout tells us a lot not only about him, but about the status of speech in Donald Trump’s America. In the president’s world, speakers should apparently be free to say whatever they please, just as long as what they say pleases him and his cronies. And when people like Kimmel don’t toe the line, they — or the institutions that employ them — should be threatened, intimidated and silenced.
No one should be fooled: The kind of attack Carr made on Kimmel, ABC and Disney will soon be coming to a podcast, radio or television station, university or civic group in your neighborhood. That’s why all of us, whether we approve of what Kimmel said, should rally to his defense and let his employers know that they have made a serious, and un-American, mistake.
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