US President Donald Trump has suggested some TV networks should have their licences “taken away”, as he backed America’s broadcast watchdog in a row over the suspension of ABC host Jimmy Kimmel.
The network announced on Wednesday that it was pulling the comedian off air “indefinitely” amid a backlash over his remarks about the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Kimmel appeared to suggest the suspect was a Trump supporter. Authorities in Utah, where the shooting occurred, have said he was “indoctrinated with leftist ideology”.
ABC axed the show after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened regulatory action – raising concerns the Trump administration was curtailing the free speech of its critics.
The FCC’s chair, Brendan Carr, a Trump apointee, 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”.
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, all seven swing states [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, said the “Maga gang” 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”.
He also likened Trump’s reaction to the death of his 31-year-old political confidant to “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish”.
After the shooting, Kimmel had also gone on Instagram to condemn the attack and send “love” to the Kirk family.
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, and their independently-owned affiliates.
But the agency has limited authority over cable channels, like Fox or MSNBC, and no authority over podcasts or most streaming content.
Legal scholars say the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech, would prevent the FCC from lawfully revoking licences on the basis of political disagreement.
Joe Strazullo, a late-night writer who worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live! from 2015-21, 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.”
Kimmel’s suspension was announced shortly after Nexstar Media, one of the biggest owners of TV stations in the US, said it would not air his show “for the foreseeable future”.
Nexstar called his remarks about Kirk “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse”.
Carr praised Nexstar – which is currently seeking FCC approval for a $6.2bn (£4.5bn) merger with 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 original time slot for Kimmel’s show on Friday.
Kirk, a high-profile conservative activist and father-of-two, died of a single gunshot wound to the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem on 10 September.
A 22-year-old man was charged on Tuesday with aggravated murder, and prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty.
Writers, actors and other 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”.
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”.
On Thursday, the hosts of late-night shows on rival networks rallied behind Kimmel.
“This is blatant censorship,” Stephen Colbert on CBS said. “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch.”
In July, CBS announced it would not renew The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for another season.
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 argued it was accountability, not cancel culture.
“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 the killing of Kirk on the activist’s “allies and friends”.
British presenter Piers Morgan said Kimmel had “lied about Charlie Kirk’s assassin being Maga” and his comments caused “understandable outrage all over America”.
“Why is he being heralded as some kind of free speech martyr?” he added.
But one of Carr’s FCC leadership colleagues, commissioner Anna Gomez, criticised the regulator’s stance on Kimmel.
She said that “an inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship or control”.
BBC News used AI to help write the summary at the top of this article. It was edited by BBC journalists. Find out more.