One of Kimmel’s other jokes in that final show before he was pulled off the air concerned Trump, after being asked how he felt about Kirk’s death, responding with a casual one-liner and then immediately segueing into lavish praise for the new banquet hall he was building: “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.” To which one of the MAGAts on social media responded, “Kimmel is comparing Charlie Kirk to a goldfish”!
No, you fucking brain-dead moron, Kimmel is comparing your esteemed orange president to a four-year-old. The capacity of the typical MAGAt for willful ignorance is truly astounding. There is virtually nothing a progressive can say that they won’t twist into some completely different and invariably evil meaning.
If the boycotting affiliate organization (Sinclair and Nexstar) get low ratings on their replacement shows, they will want to understand that Kimmel apologized. But if the replacements do OK, Nexstar will acquire Tegna, meaning that more stations will have joined the boycott, and the affiliates will want to understand that Kimmel never walked anything back.
The Trumpers are undoubtedly scrutinizing another political ABC show, The View, on a daily basis, looking for some bit they can use to get another one off affiliate stations. That must be why The View, at least for the first few days, has been silent on Kimmel.
How long can Kimmel go with so many stations not running the nation ads? And how long can the affiliates sustain their boycott? There’s some drama here.
The vital part of the right-wing capitalization on Charlie Kirk’s murder is that they must marry the outrage over the murder with things a critic says about Trump supporters or Trump himself. They’re aware that the emotional state over the murder won’t last forever and that they need to strike now while people might not think too heavily about whether the Kimmel being struck was actually criticizing the dead or criticizing the living
Right. And There is a subtle distinction that is important. The Gov’t won’t “negotiate” with terrorists/kidnappers, etc. if the terrorist are demanding something from the Gov’t.
But assuming the situation affects a private person or entity, people can and do negotiate, and are encouraged to do so by the Gov’t with Gov’t help negotiating (talking, not paying).
So when a terrorist kidnaps a citizen and makes demands of the Gov’t, the Gov’t and private side will negotiate. But it’s tricky. But honestly, probably less complicated than the Kimmel situation which has so many interested parties involved.
All that to say, Kimmel handled this about as well as it could be handled.
I don’t generally watch Kimmel because I don’t find him particularly funny. Of course I did watch his monologue from last night and it was solid: earnest, open, appropriate to the gravity of commenting on both political violence and censorship.
And not particularly funny. I would have preferred he come out with some bigger swings after the commercial break, but oh well.
In case anyone was curious about the specifics, ABC paid $15 million to settle a suit with Donald Trump in December 2024. Trump had sued the network for defamation in response to a statement George Stephanopoulos made during a March 2024 interview with Nancy Mace – that Trump “had been found liable for rape in a civil case”. Rather than rape, Trump had instead been found liable for sexual abuse. On that distinction Trump’s defamation suit hinged.
“We here at ABC regret identifying Donald Trump as a rapist, when what he was found liable for was sexually attacking a woman, against her will, while she occupied a department store changing room.”
@kenobi_65 answered this pretty well upthread but just to amplify on it.
!) Local stations have complete latitude on what they will or won’t air from the network. They’re what’s licensed by the FCC, and they’re who’s responsible for what goes out. Their contracts with the networks stipulate that.
Many if not all affiliates have some sort of limited agreement that they can preempt X amount of programming without penalty. One local station here has pre-empted a half-dozen evenings for baseball games. There’s usually some sort of agreement that these “scheduled preemptions” will be made up somehow - the station can run the programs at a later time, the network can authorize a non-affiliate to run that program, the station can run commercials from the pre-empted program in their own commercial breaks, etc.
That said, if a local station continually pre-empts the network, the network can shop its affiliation around at contract renewal time. That used to be hard to do in any but the largest markets, because most small markets didn’t have multiple channels. It’s theoretically easier now that stations have subchannels. Lima, Ohio has two TV stations, one carries NBC and Fox, the other carries ABC and CBS.
It’s embarrassing, but the Jimmy Kimmel debacle actually IS important. It was the first REAL attempt by the Project 2025 movement to flex their muscle against someone who wasn’t a nameless, defenseless nobody, and IT CATASTROPHICALLY FLOPPED IN LESS THAN A WEEK!
Check Project 2025. Although the FCC chapter was written by Brandan Carr, it says nothing about censoring TV network content. While there is a lot in Project 2025 I disagree with, Trump 47 is much worse than Project 2025.
Kimmel should make a large contribution in Kirk’s name - to the ACLU. Since Kirk was such a big free speech advocate (according to all the talking heads) and the ACLU also defends free speech nobody should have any problem with that.