Donald Trump Wants to Make Broadcast Television Great Again- by Canceling Every Host Who Talks Bad About Him

Jimmy Kimmel (left) and President Trump (right). Source: Tyla.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! became the latest casualty of President Trump’s media suppression campaign on Wednesday, September 17th, when ABC News announced the show’s indefinite suspension.    

The suspension came hours after the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr, stated on a right-wing podcast that Jimmy Kimmel’s Monday night monologue was "really sick.” In the segment, Kimmel joked that Charlie Kirk’s killer, Tyler Robinson, is likely a Trump supporter, and that Trump’s “MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterize [Robinson] as anything other than one of them.” 

On the podcast, Carr warned ABC and its affiliates that the FCC could “either do this the easy way or the hard way,” implying that if Kimmel was not taken off air, then ABC, a network owned by Disney, would face regulatory consequences. 

While many on the left view Kimmel’s suspension as a violation of his First Amendment rights, many on the right claim that this isn’t political at all. Kimmel spoke insensitively about Kirk’s assassination; therefore, he must face consequences and lose his livelihood, just like every other American would or has. 

However, Kimmel never said much of anything about Kirk’s assassination. In fact, he condemned gun violence on his Instagram just a few days before his monologue, saying “...can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents, and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.” 

Given that Kimmel condemned the assassination, justifying his suspension because of his “insensitivity” would be a stretch. Right-wing media continues to frame Kimmel’s joke as an attack on the late Kirk, when in reality, his comments were pointed directly at President Trump. Kimmel’s sincere statement remains evidence of his sensitivity towards gun violence and Kirk’s untimely death. Continuing to frame Kimmel’s monologue as more negative than it actually is enables right-wing media to justify his suspension under the guise of  “censorship,” when in actuality, it is undeniably a suppression of his free speech. 

It’s also no secret that conservative news networks have made similar, if not worse, comments on other human rights issues. Where was this same public outrage when Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggested that homeless people should be put to death? 

“Or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill ‘em,” Kilmeade had said, his face stoic and sure. 

While Kilmeade issued an apology on air just days later, he never once faced the threat of suspension from Fox News, let alone the president of the United States. This double standard leaves many Americans wondering– why only censor Kimmel? It seems as though insensitivity is only permissible when television hosts present themselves as vehemently conservative. 

Ultimately, Kimmel’s suspension ties back into Trump’s grand media suppression plan. Kimmel is a celebrity with influence, who associated Kirk’s death with that of Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement. Kimmel’s suspension seems less about his comments on Kirk’s death and more about his willingness to associate the MAGA movement with political violence.  

While Kimmel’s suspension may not technically violate his First Amendment rights, it reflects Trump’s broader strategy to undermine constitutional checks and balances, which he is now practically able to forgo through policy proposals outlined in Project 2025– a political blueprint developed by conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. The blueprint outlines how the Trump Administration can centralize power in the executive branch through Unitary Executive Theory. 

The theory interprets the president's constitutional powers as supreme and over the entirety of the executive branch, allocating the president more power and authority than ever before. This interpretation allows Trump and his administration to use a historical framing of Article II of the Constitution to justify overriding traditional Congressional oversight. Other conservative presidents, like Nixon or Bush, have used Unitary Executive Theory in some cases, although America has rarely seen it used as expansively as Trump has just in his first eight months back in office.  

In the FCC chapter of Project 2025, Chairman Brendan Carr consistently invokes the Unitary Executive Theory in the context of a potential second Trump presidency. Both Carr and the Trump Administration have used this interpretation to justify Trump and his administration's power to revoke regulatory approval from broadcast networks on his own authority. In a video released by The New Yorker, journalist Molly Jong Fast explains, “it is cheaper for [networks] to silence free speech for shareholder value than it is to protect the speech of different individuals on their platforms.”  

It’s not that broadcast networks back Trump and his ‘MAGA’ movement themselves. But networks do understand that a lot of money is at stake if they don’t play by Trump’s rules, because they realize he now has the power to censor those he doesn’t ‘like.’ If Trump continues to use his political leverage to economically pressure networks into compliance, we might be saying goodbye to even more left-leaning hosts and journalists. As a businessman, Trump realizes that when there is money involved, networks are likely to sell out.   

Trump and his other conservative allies have called liberals absurd for blaming Kimmel’s suspension on the executives' newfound powers, and claim that these network cancellations are beyond the President’s control. Trump even took it to his Truth Social page to clean up this theory, attributing the cancellation to ABC’s realization of how “talentless” Kimmel truly was, and he even congratulated the network for “finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”    

Trump’s swift suppression of multiple television broadcasts is alarming, and the denial of his hand in it should be even more concerning. Just two months ago, amid the cancellation of  The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, President Trump posted a celebration, promising that “Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night sweepstakes.”  

The President’s enthusiasm to cleanse broadcast networks of their slew of untalented hosts should not be interpreted as a sincere effort, fought solely for the pleasure of the American people– it would be naive to believe so. By attributing both Colbert’s cancellation and Kimmel’s suspension to the respective hosts’ lack of talent, the Trump Administration has lazily masked its own ulterior political motives to silence any opposition. This dangerous loophole provides Trump with the authority of a king: if you do not perform up to his MAGA standards, you will be forced off of your platform. This makes it a scary time for journalists now and in the future. 

Late-night talk shows are only the beginning of how far President Trump will go. While figures like Kimmel serve as a warning for a wave of more media censorship to come, it is important to remember that our voices are most powerful when those in power seek to suppress them. It’s time that all American citizens realize that a threat to anyone’s fundamental freedoms is a bipartisan issue– left or right, your freedom of speech is mine too.