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Jimmy Kimmel was seen out in Los Angeles in the wake of his late-night talk show being from ABC “indefinitely,” following comments he made about the recent death of Charlie Kirk.
Photos taken on Thursday, Sept. 18 showed the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host, 57, exiting a vehicle in Los Angeles less than 24 hours after Nexstar announced that its “owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show.” Sinclair later did the same, and ABC pulled the show from its schedule nationwide.
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In the images, Kimmel wore a pair of sunglasses with dark clothing as he stepped out of the driver’s seat of a car.
Among the many celebrities who have voiced their support for Kimmel is Stephen Colbert, who referred to Kimmel’s removal from the schedule a form of “blatant censorship.” The comedian, whose Late Show was canceled by CBS in July, added, “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch… Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100%.”
ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its schedule indefinitely on Wednesday, Sept. 17, two days after he made comments about Kirk during his Monday, Sept. 15 episode. Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 at the age of 31.
“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 doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said on Monday.
He went on to discuss President Donald Trump’s “grieving” process, which Kimmel compared to “how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
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During the segment, a clip played of Trump being asked how he was holding up after his “friend” was killed, with the president responding, “I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”
Trump, who was on a state visit to the U.K. at the time that the show was indefinitely pulled, said, “Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else and he said a horrible thing about a great man named Charlie Kirk.”
“Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person, he had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago,” he continued. “You can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent.”
Additionally, Trump made a second statement where he claimed licensed networks are “not allowed” to rail on him because they give him “wholly bad publicity.”
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“I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” he said, in part, adding, “When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do.”
He then shared who would make the decision.
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“It will be up to [Federal Communications Commission Chair] Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy,” Trump said.
Carr responded by saying that his agency is “not done yet” making changes to the “media ecosystem.”
Nexstar recently announced plans to acquire rival broadcast company Tegna for $6.2 billion, a massive deal that would further consolidate the local television landscape and put Nexstar in 80% of America’s TV-owning households, according to a press release. The acquisition will require final approval from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission.
Carr quickly praised Nexstar on Wednesday for putting pressure on ABC to remove Kimmel, writing on X that “it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.”
