ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show over Charlie Kirk comments after FCC threats – live

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or operates dozens of local ABC stations across the US, announced on Wednesday that it plans to fill Jimmy Kimmel’s time-slot on Friday with a tribute to Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist and content creator whose assassination last week the comedian was pulled from the air for commenting on.

In a statement posted online, Sinclair praised the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, for threatening the licenses of stations that defended Kimmel’s right to free speech, and called the comic’s remarks “inappropriate and deeply insensitive”.

“Sinclair’s ABC stations will air a special in remembrance of Charlie Kirk this Friday, during the Jimmy Kimmel Live! timeslot. The special will also air across all Sinclair stations this weekend. In addition, Sinclair is offering the special to all ABC affiliates across the country,” the company said.

The company owns ABC affiliates in dozens of cities, including: Washington DC; St Louis, Missouri; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It pledged to keep Kimmel’s show off its stations “until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”

Sinclair also called for Kimmel “to issue a direct apology to the Kirk family” and “to make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA,” the far-right youth group Kirk founded.

During Donald Trump’s first term in office, Sinclair compelled news anchors on nearly 200 stations it owns, affiliated with ABC and other broadcasters, to read a prepared script in which they proclaimed:

“The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.”

“Some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias.”

“This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.”

In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden disappearance from the airwaves, Democrats in the House and Senate plan to introduce legislation “to protect individuals and organizations, including non-profits, faith groups, media outlets, and educational institutions, from politically motivated targeting and prosecution by the federal government”.

Senators Chris Murphy, Chuck Schumer, Chris Van Hollen and Tina Smith will be joined by representatives Jason Crow, Greg Casar and Chrissy Houlahan at a press conference on Thursday to discuss their proposed No Political Enemies (Nope) act.

According to the lawmakers, they will also talk about threats from Donald Trump, and his vice-president, JD Vance, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, “to use the tragic shooting of Charlie Kirk as justification to weaponize the federal government to go after left-leaning individuals and organizations that don’t align with Trump’s political agenda”.

Jenna Amatulli

More reactions to the “indefinite” suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! have continued to pour in on social media, with politicians from both sides of the aisle, celebrities and more weighing in.

Nancy Mace, a Republican South Carolina representative who is running to be governor of South Carolina, celebrated in an impassioned post on X, claiming “we’re on a truth streak. President Trump is always right, YOU’RE FIRED”, while Chuck Schumer, a Democratic New York senator, demanded “this must go to court.”

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, took aim at the Republican party, calling the move “coordinated” and “dangerous.”

“The @GOP does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time,” he wrote on X.

Actor Ben Stiller simply wrote in a quote-tweet on X: “This isn’t right.”

In a statement on what it calls the “censoring” of Jimmy Kimmel, the American Civil Liberties Union noted that, as we reported, ABC and Nexstar, which owns local ABC affiliate stations, acted only after the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, told a far-right podcaster that the FCC has the power to strip the broadcasting licenses of the affiliates.

Nexstar, the ACLU noted, “reportedly needs FCC approval to complete a $6.2 billion acquisition of the Tegna broadcasting company”.

Christopher Anders, director of the Democracy and Technology division of the ACLU, said:

Jimmy Kimmel is the latest target of the Trump administration’s unconstitutional plan to silence its critics and control what the American people watch and read. Cowering to threats, ABC and the biggest owner of its affiliate stations gave the Trump FCC chairman exactly what he wanted by suspending Kimmel indefinitely and dropping the show.

“This is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke. The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our first amendment freedoms.”

This is where we are now.

Brendan Carr, the openly partisan chair of the Federal Communications Commission, responded to a request for comment from the CNN media analyst Brian Stelter on ABC taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air by sending a celebratory gif from the US version of The Office.

Donald Trump is still in England, where it is after 1am, but he is celebrating ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show from airwaves as a personal triumph and calling for NBC to complete the purge of his enemies by firing Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers next.

“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED,” Trump wrote on his social network, although the suspension of Kimmel’s show is not yet officially final.

“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. That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT,” the president of network programming the United States wrote.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a video statement posted on social media that ABC’s decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel from the air over his mockery of the right’s response to the killing of Charlie Kirk is part of “the systematic destruction of free speech in this country”.

“It is Donald Trump using the power of the White House, in this case the power of his regulatory agencies, to try to shut down any speech that opposes him,” Murphy added. “Understand the gravity of this moment. This is a moment for the country to mobilize. This is a moment for all of us to be out in the streets protesting.”

Hours before ABC decided to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, had publicly threatened to take action against the broadcaster, and its local affiliate stations in an interview with the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson.

Amid a concerted effort from the pro-Trump right to police commentary on the murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Kimmel had come under pressure for saying, on Monday, “the Maga gang” was “trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Johnson, a former journalist who lost two jobs over plagiarism allegations before pivoting to become a far-right influencer, began his interview with the FCC chair on Wednesday by suggesting that Kimmel’s mockery of the rush to brand the person who shot Kirk a left-wing radical could somehow lead to “copycats” or “further radicalization”.

“When you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible,” Carr responded.

“In some quarters, there’s a very concerted effort to try to lie to the American people,” Carr said, about the nature of Kirk’s assassination.

Carr then referred to Kimmel’s monologue as a “really, really sick” effort “to play into that narrative, that this was somehow a Maga or Republican-motivated person.”

Carr added that broadcasters licensed by the FCC have an obligation to act in the public interest. “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

“There are calls for Kimmel to be fired. I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this,” Carr added. “Again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at.”

Carr also credited Donald Trump for having already toppled a number of his critics in “the legacy media”.

“NPR has been defunded, PBS has been defunded, Colbert is retiring, Joy Reid is out at MSNBC, Terry Moran is gone from ABC,” Carr said. “So I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless.”

ABC bowed to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday by announcing that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show will be taken off the air “indefinitely” following complaints about his comments on the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson told CNN.

The decision by Disney-owned ABC came after one of the country’s largest owners of local ABC stations, Nexstar, announced that it would immediately preempt Kimmel’s show, “for the foreseeable future” because the company “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk.”

In his opening monologue on Monday, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

The comedian added: “Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”

Still, Andrew Alford, the president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division said on Wednesday: “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.”

Nexstar acted after Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show.

In an appearance on the far-right podcaster Benny Johnson’s show, Carr said: “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters, and frankly I think it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, ‘Listen, we are going to preempt, we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.”

The disappearance of Kimmel comes two weeks after he used his monologue to mock Donald Trump for predicting that he would soon follow Stephen Colbert in being canceled for making fun of him.

“You want us to be canceled because we make jokes about you?” Kimmel asked Trump. “I thought you’re against cancel culture – I thought that was like their whole thing – when did you become so woke?”

“Unfortunately for Frosty the Snowflake, the only place we are going is to New York,” Kimmel said, previewing a series of shows to be recorded in Brooklyn, one of which was to have featured Stephen Colbert.

Senator Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, calling the conclusion “inescapable” and becoming the first US senator to use the term.

“Over the last two years, Israel has not simply defended itself against Hamas,” Sanders wrote. “Instead, it has waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.”

Sanders had long received flak from supporters and protesters alike for avoiding the term, which he previously said made him “queasy” when protesters chanted it last year during a speech in Ireland.

On Monday, an independent UN commission of experts concluded that Israel’s actions “meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide convention”.

“I agree,” Sanders wrote in a statement on his senate webpage titled: “It Is Genocide. The intent is clear.”

Outside DC, and on the campaign trail, Kyle Sweetser, who is running as a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Alabama, delivered a speech this week where he accused Donald Trump of “tearing” down the economy.

Sweetser, who voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, noted that he once “believed” the president’s promises to “shake up Washington”.

But now, the president’s widespread tariffs, Sweetser says, have pushed him across the aisle and into electoral politics.

“His [Trump’s] favorite thing to do is raise OUR prices with HIS tariffs. Those tariffs have hurt businesses like mine and driven up prices on just about everything,” he said.

Sweetser, who owns a construction company, spoke at last year’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, and has said the January 6 attack led him to become a “Republican voter against Trump”.

At an event for rank-and-file Alabama Democrats in downtown Mobile, Sweetser said that instead of strengthening our economy, Trump has “made it harder for families and small businesses to get by”.

“I’ve come to understand that Trump isn’t the answer – he never was. His policies are cruel, reckless, and defy logic,” he said. “ He sees himself above the law, and with the Republican party groveling at his feet, bending over backwards to praise their so-called king, he can get away with anything – no matter the cost to the American people.”

But Sweetser also called out a wing of the Democratic party rallying around progressive policies and candidates – like Zohran Mamdani, the NYC mayoral candidate surging ahead in the polls.

“I’m a common sense, southern Democrat – not a New York City socialist. I’m a hardworking American who owns more guns than shoes,” Sweetser said.

Despite calling for Americans to treat the trans community with respect, Sweetser did note today that he doesn’t “think it’s fair for men to participate in women’s sports” and urged the party at large to “reevaluate” its “image and policies”.

“We need to start talking about the most important issues. Not focusing on everyone’s pronouns,” he added.

Sweetser is running to fill the Alabama Senate seat in 2026 – left open by Tommy Tuberville, the incumbent Republican running for governor. He faces a stiff challenge from the state’s attorney general and GOP front runner, Steve Marshall.

In a remarkable moment during his appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared not to recognize the name of the white supremacist murderer, Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

At the start of a series of questions on violent extremism coming from both sides of the partisan divide, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, asked Patel to tell her if he disagreed with the characterization that several violent extremists were motivated by rightwing views.

“So Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel.

Video from a camera trained on Patel shows that he squinted his eyes and looked quizzically at the congresswoman after she mentioned Roof’s name. He then turned to consult an aide before looking back at Kamlager-Dove.

“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” Patel asked, puzzled.

“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove corrected him.

“Roof. Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.

“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” Kamlager-Dove said. “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”

“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said.

“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove said. She then moved on to ask if Patel disagreed with the statement that “Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh in 2018 – ”

“I do remember that,” Patel interjected.

“And it was the deadliest antisemitic attack. So do you admit that that happened?” Kamlager-Dove asked.

“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel replied.

After the hearing, the congresswoman shared video of the exchange on social media with the comment: “The Director of the FBI doesn’t know who Dylann Roof is? It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade.”

The exchange came one day after Barack Obama, the former president, discussed his response to that racist mass shooting at an event in Pennsylvania.

“As president of the United States, my response was not, ‘Who may have influenced this troubled young man to engage in that kind of violence,’ and now let me go after my political opponents, and use that,” Obama said.

Also today, FBI director Kash Patel appeared before the House judiciary committee today. He answered questions from lawmakers about the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

In several exchanges Patel sparred with Democratic representatives. When congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland – who also serves as the committee’s ranking member – asked why Patel had not released the full tranche of Epstein records, the FBI director said he was hamstrung by recent court orders preventing him from doing so. “I’m not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity,” Patel said.

Raskin also played clips of Patel on a podcast where he urged the Biden administration to “put on your big boy pants” and release Epstein’s so called “client list”. Patel had previously claimed that the FBI was in possession of the list.

More broadly, Raskin denigrated Patel’s management of the FBI, including the firing of senior officials for, what they claim, are politically motivated reasons. “You share [J Edgar] Hoover’s dangerous obsession with blind loyalty over professionalism,” Raskin said. “For you, it’s blind loyalty to Donald Trump and keeping his secrets.”

Later, California congressman Eric Swalwell, also a Democrat, went back and forth with Patel over whether he spoke to attorney general Pam Bondi about the president’s name appearing in the Epstein files. When Swalwell pushed Patel for answer, the FBI director snapped back with an unrelated diatribe: “Why don’t you try serving your constituency by focusing on reducing violent crime in this country, and the number of pedophiles that are illegally harbored in your sancturary cities in California.”

After Swalwell attempted to discuss Patel’s history of listing several “political enemies” for investigation, the FBI director said: “I’m going to borrow your terminology and call bullshit on your entire career in Congress. It has been a disgrace to the American people.”

A group of 95 members of Congress have written a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, condemning the arrest of protected immigrants known as Dreamers and demanding to know how many have been detained and deported in recent months.

In a letter shared with the Guardian and submitted to Noem on Wednesday morning, Democratic representatives denounced the recent rise in the wrongful detention and deportation of immigrants residing in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.

The representatives’ letter is also addressed to Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.

In the letter, co-written by House members Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and backed up by the dozens of other signatories, the representatives condemned the “blatant disregard” of the protections afforded to people under Daca.

The members of Congress also included various examples of the detention and even deportation in the second Trump administration of Daca recipients, who are known as Dreamers after the Dream Act, legislation first introduced in 2001 to protect a large group of undocumented people who had been brought to the US as children.

As Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK continues, guests are due to start arriving for the state banquet shortly, with the dinner expected about 3.30pm EST/8.30pm BST, to top off a day off pomp, pageantry and parades in Windsor.

Prime minister Keir Starmer will want to make the most of the face time with Trump, with the aim of this unprecedented visit to keep relations sweet with the administration, as opposed to securing any immediate big-ticket deals or international agreements.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to meet the president for the first time. And a number of American business leaders, who accompanied Trump on Air Force One yesterday, will also attend the dinner, as the UK government tries to court investment and boost growth. Among those expected are Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Open AI’s Sam Altman.

Both King Charles and Donald Trump are expected to deliver short speeches at today’s banquet.

You can follow the latest developments at our dedicated live blog below: