US President Donald Trump has suggested some TV networks should have their licences “taken away”.
The remarks come after pressure from his administration led ABC to suspend Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night TV host who suggested that the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah last week was perpetrated by a Trump supporter.
Kimmel’s suspension following the threat of regulatory action has raised concerns the Trump administration was attempting to curtail the free speech of its critics – with other talk show hosts commenting on the row.
“This is blatant censorship,” Stephen Colbert said on his rival CBS show. “With an autocrat, you can’t give an inch.”
Trump spoke about the issue to reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday while returning from a state visit to the UK.
“I have read some place that the networks were 97% against me, again, 97% negative, and yet I won and easily [in last year’s election],” the president said.
“They give me only bad publicity [and] press. I mean, they’re getting a licence. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.”
In his monologue on Monday, Kimmel, 57, had said the “Maga gang” – a reference to Trump supporters who rallied around his Make America Great Again election slogan – was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” and trying to “score political points from it”.
Officials in Utah, where Kirk was killed, have said he was “indoctrinated with leftist ideology”.
Kimmel also likened Trump’s reaction to the death of his 31-year-old political confidant to “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish”.
Kimmel has condemned the attack and sent “love” to the Kirk family in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
The FCC’s chair, Brendan Carr accused Kimmel of “the sickest conduct possible” and said firms like the Disney-owned ABC could “find ways to change conduct and take action… or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC”.
FCC chair Carr told Fox on Thursday: “We’re going to continue to hold these broadcasters accountable to the public interest – and if broadcasters don’t like that simple solution, they can turn their licence in to the FCC.”
The FCC has regulatory power over major networks, such as ABC, as well as the local stations that carry their content. Owners of local stations can also influence major networks by refusing to carry shows.
Kimmel’s suspension was announced shortly after Nexstar Media, one of America’s largest TV station owners, said it would not air his show “for the foreseeable future” as his remarks had been “offensive and insensitive”.
Carr praised Nexstar – which is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn (£4.5bn) merger with another media company, Tegna – and said he hoped other broadcasters would follow its lead.
Sinclair, the largest ABC affiliate group in the US, said it would air a special remembrance programme dedicated to Kirk during the Jimmy Kimmel Live! time slot on Friday.
Kirk died of a single gunshot wound to the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University on 10 September.
A 22-year-old man was charged with aggravated murder on Tuesday. Prosecutors say he was “indoctrinated with leftist ideology” and that they will seek the death penalty.
Legal scholars say the US Constitution’s first amendment, which protects free speech, would prevent the FCC from revoking licences over political disagreements.
But Joe Strazullo, a former Jimmy Kimmel Live! writer, told the BBC there was an atmosphere of fear in the writers’ room.
“It’s heartbreaking to see the threat of them being out of work,” he said. “Nobody knows exactly what’s going on still and they’re working things out behind the scenes.”
Writers, actors and prominent Democrats have condemned Kimmel’s suspension.
Former US President Barrack Obama said the Trump administration had taken cancel culture 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”.
Late-night show hosts have rallied around Kimmel.
In a rare mid-week episode of The Daily Show, comedian Jon Stewart poked fun at the curtailing of free speech under the current administration.
Stewart described himself as a “patriotically obedient host” and his programme as “administration-compliant”. He then referred to Trump as “dear leader” who has been “gracing England with his legendary warmth and radiance”.
In a later segment of his show, Stewart interviewed Maria Ressa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for her fight for free speech and democracy in the Philippines under former President Rodrigo Duterte.
What’s happening in the US is “identical to what happened in the Philippines,” Ressa said. “It’s both deja vu and PTSD.”
She added: “Americans are like deer in headlights. If you don’t move and protect the rights you have, you lose them, and it’s so much harder to reclaim them,” she said.
Actor Ben Stiller said what happened to Kimmel “isn’t right”, while Hacks star Jean Smart said she was “horrified at the cancellation”.
The Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild, two Hollywood trade unions, condemned the suspension of Kimmel as a violation of constitutional free speech rights.
But others have maintained the FCC and ABC acted appropriately.
“When a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time and then that person is punished for it, that’s not cancel culture,” said Dave Portnoy, who founded media company Barstool Sports.
“That is consequences for your actions.”
Late-night Fox host Greg Gutfeld argued that Kimmel had “deliberately and misleadingly” blamed Kirk’s “allies and friends” for his death.
British presenter Piers Morgan said Kimmel had caused “understandable outrage all over America”, adding: “Why is he being heralded as some kind of free speech martyr?”
But one of Carr’s FCC leadership colleagues, commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, criticised the regulator’s stance.
She said that “an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control”.
