LOS ANGELES--U.S. President Donald Trump celebrated the suspension of talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves, inflaming a debate over whether Trump and Republicans are infringing free speech as they sought to punish some critics of murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump, speaking during a state visit to Britain on Thursday, said Kimmel had been punished for saying "a horrible thing" about Kirk, a close political ally of the president who is credited with building support for Trump among young conservative voters.
The broadcaster ABC announced on Wednesday that it was yanking "Jimmy Kimmel Live" indefinitely. Writers, performers, former U.S. President Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats condemned Kimmel's suspension, calling it capitulation to unconstitutional government pressure.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his office and the courts to attack unflattering speech about him that he has called defamatory or false. Kimmel's suspension came after owners of local TV stations had said they would stop broadcasting his celebrity-filled late-night show, and the nation's top communications regulator threatened to investigate Kimmel's commentary about Kirk.
Kimmel, a comedian who frequently lampoons Trump, said during his nine-minute opening monologue on Monday that allies of Kirk were using his assassination last week to "score political points". Kirk, 31, was shot onstage at a university in Utah on September 10, where he was holding one of his frequent public debates with students over his political views in an event organized by his advocacy group, Turning Point USA.
"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 do everything they can to score political points from it," Kimmel said, using an abbreviation of Trump's slogan: Make America Great Again.
Kimmel, who tapes his show in Los Angeles, also mocked Trump's responses to Kirk's death: "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."
Trump, who hosted the TV show "The Apprentice" before becoming president, said that Kimmel was not talented, had bad ratings, and "said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk."
"So, you know, you can call that free speech or not," Trump said, stood alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. "He was fired for lack of talent." ABC has not said that it fired Kimmel, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Viewership of late-night shows and traditional TV in general has declined as audiences shift to streaming and social media. "Jimmy Kimmel Live" averaged 1.57 million viewers per episode for the TV season that ended in May, according to Nielsen.
In the week since Kirk's murder, Kimmel is the most famous American to face professional blowback for comments condemned by conservatives as disrespectful of Kirk, alongside media figures, academic workers, teachers and corporate employees. A 22-year-old technical college student and videogame-enthusiast from Utah was charged with Kirk's murder on Tuesday.
Prominent Democrats said Trump was mounting an assault on free speech rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Republicans have said they are fighting against "hate speech" that can spiral into violence, and accuse some Kirk critics of trying to justify his murder.
Obama, who was succeeded by Trump in 2017, said media companies must not capitulate to government coercion."After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn't like," Obama said in a statement.
