After lying about the murder of Charlie Kirk and violating federal broadcast rules, one of the Left’s most vocal mouthpieces is scrambling to return to America’s airwaves. Late night television personality Jimmy Kimmel’s nightly show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was suspended last week after Kimmel falsely claimed that Tyler Roinson, who has been arrested for shooting and killing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10, was a member of “the MAGA gang” and not a left-wing extremist.

Kimmel also accused “many in MAGA land,” including Kirk’s longtime friend Vice President J.D. Vance, of “working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.” In another segment, he claimed President Trump was mourning the young Turning Point USA founder “like a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr later suggested in an interview that Kimmel’s comments may have violated FCC rules and recommended that the late-night talk show host be reprimanded by the network ABC, which is owned by Disney. Carr explained that Kimmel “appeared to be making an intentional effort to mislead the public that Kirk's assassin was a right-wing Trump supporter” and that the FCC “has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC, and network parent Disney accountable for spreading misinformation.” Subsequently, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Nexstar Broadcast Group announced that they would be suspending broadcast of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely, prompting ABC and Disney to follow suit. According to multiple reports, Kimmel refused to apologize for his comments and even planned to double down on attacking President Donald Trump and conservatives in his Wednesday night monologue, before Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney Entertainment co-chair Dana Walden put Kimmel’s show on hold.

The decision to cancel Kimmel’s show sparked backlash from Democrats and Hollywood elites, who accused the Trump administration of pressuring ABC into the decision. Over 430 Hollywood performers — including Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck, Billy Crystal, Kevin Bacon, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, and others — signed an open letter Monday calling ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.” Over 600 self-described comedians have signed another open letter criticizing the decision. “When the government targets one of us, they target all of us,” the letter complained. “They strike at the heart of our shared humanity. They strip away the basic right every person deserves: to speak freely, question boldly, and laugh loudly.”

Stars of the Marvel superhero films, distributed by Disney, have turned on the hand that feeds them and called on fans to cancel their Disney+ streaming services and boycott Disney subsidiaries and affiliates due to the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” suspension. Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan backed out of performing at the ABC premiere of a documentary on the Lilith Fair, the 1990s all-female concert series McLachlan co-founded and named after a demon. Radio “shock jock” Howard Stren, who racked up numerous FCC fines for indecent content on his program over the years, called ABC’s Kimmel suspension “f****** horrible” on his Sirius XM program. “When the government begins to interfere, when the government says, ‘I’m not pleased with you, so we’re going to orchestrate a way to silence you,’ it’s the wrong direction for our country,” the infamous radio host said. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded, “If Howard is sad about Kimmel’s absence on air, he should talk to ABC who made the decision to pull down his unfunny and unpopular show.” She added, “This has nothing to do with free speech; low-ratings loser Kimmel is free to make whatever bad jokes he wants, but a private company is under no obligation to lose money producing unpopular shows.”

Elected Democrats have pointed more specifically to Carr and Trump’s FCC as problematic. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and top House Democrats issued a statement accusing Carr of “the corrupt abuse of power. He has disgraced the office he holds by bullying ABC, the employer of Jimmy Kimmel, and forcing the company to bend the knee to the Trump administration.” The statement continued, “Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s war on the First Amendment is blatantly inconsistent with American values.” Senator Gary Peters (D-Mich.) posted on social media, “It is unacceptable for the FCC to threaten a media organization because the President does not like the content. That flies in the face of the First Amendment.” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D), an outspoken Trump opponent, commented, “What’s at stake here is free speech. Across the board, we’ve seen the Trump administration use the power of government to go after anybody who’s criticized them — and in this case, Jimmy Kimmel.”

However, some Republicans have been critical of Carr’s handling of the situation, too. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared Carr to a mafia gangster “coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’” Cruz suggested on his podcast that Democrats may cite Carr’s comments to justify censoring conservatives at some time in the future. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) agreed, saying in an interview that Carr’s comments were “absolutely inappropriate.” He added, “The government has no business in it. The FCC was wrong to weigh in, and I will fight any attempt by the government to get involved in speech.”

Unlike congressional Republicans, Carr has not forgotten the censorship regime enacted by former President Joe Biden. He pointed out as much at a conference on Monday. “There are a lot of Democrats out there that are engaged in a campaign of projection and distortion,” he said, referring to the censoring, canceling, and deplatforming of conservatives over the years. He further explained that FCC-licensed broadcasters like Nexstar and Sinclair have to adhere to “public interest” standards in order to keep their broadcast licenses, but corporate-made shows like Kimmel’s can jeopardize smaller broadcasters’ licenses. “You have national programmers like Disney, like Comcast, like Paramount, that are not licensed by the FCC, that have no public interest obligation, and they provide a lot of the primetime shows that the licensed TV stations put out over the air,” Carr noted. “What has happened over the years is that the national programmers have exerted more and more control and pressure on the local TV stations,” he said. “They don’t feel like they can push back on the national programmers, even when they think there is some content that they don’t think, in their judgment, not my judgment, makes sense for the local communities.”

Now, Disney and ABC are planning to resume production of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Disney announced the decision Monday. “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the entertainment giant said in a statement. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” According to the New York Post, Kimmel’s return to the airwaves was brokered in a discussion between the late-night host and Iger and Walden themselves. Kimmel has no plans to apologize for his comments.

However, Sinclair has announced that it will not participate in the comeback and will not air “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Instead, the broadcaster will air news segments in Kimmel’s time slot. Sinclair Vice Chairman Jason Smith previously called Kimmel’s controversial remarks “inappropriate and deeply insensitive at a critical moment for our country.” Specifically referencing Carr’s comments, Smith asked the FCC “to take immediate regulatory action to address control held over local broadcasters by the big national networks.” Sinclair also pledged that it “will not lift the suspension of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on our stations until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.” The broadcaster also demanded Kimmel apologize for his comments and “make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA.” Sinclair owns over 30 ABC affiliates across the country, including one in Washington, D.C.

Nexstar has joined Sinclair in refusing to air Kimmel’s show, according to Fox News. “We made a decision last week to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve.” Like Sinclair, Nexstar owns over 30 ABC affiliates.

A study published by Media Research Center’s (MRC’s) NewsBusters found that Kimmel’s political humor overwhelmingly targeted Trump and his allies, mocking conservatives with 92% of his jokes. “Jimmy Kimmel’s reign of partisan pandering masquerading as comedy has blown past its sell-by date. He has stated in the past that dialogue with Americans who think differently than he does isn’t his idea of a good time, so no use trying to convince us otherwise,” said Curtis Houck, managing editor of MRC’s NewsBusters in comments to The Washington Stand. “His comments about Kirk, MAGA, and the president were not only distasteful, but conspiratorial as, by the time he spoke on September 15, the Utah governor had already confirmed the suspect in Kirk’s killing was not a Trump supporter,” Houck added. “The Left often lectures the public about words mattering and Kimmel’s certainly do. … If we are all supposed to watch our tones after such a fraught moment, then Kimmel should do his part.”

The matter of Kimmel’s return to the airwaves has been complicated after a Sacramento man opened fire on ABC affiliate KXTV on Friday. According to multiple reports, the suspect is a former teacher’s union legislative director with a lengthy history of left-wing rhetoric and social media activity. FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed that the suspect has been arrested and taken into custody. Some conservatives, such as The Blaze’s Auron MacIntyre, have suggested that ABC may have been pressured into returning Kimmel to television by left-wing domestic terrorists.

FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter told The Washington Stand, “Like an addict constantly chasing higher highs, Jimmy Kimmel descended a truly odious path, culminating with his show being suspended for claiming — without evidence — that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by someone on the political right, just five days after the tragic event.” He continued, “Despite the apparent willingness of executives at ABC and Disney to administer some Narcan to Kimmel’s show, Sinclair and Nexstar instead opted for the only beneficial path for all parties involved: refuse to air his show, denying him his next hit of fame and sparing the American public from his spectacle.” Carpenter quipped, “Kimmel needs to take a cold shower. No one was watching him anymore. His ratings were in rapid decline, dropping 30%, 40%, or so every year, until he hit rock bottom: averaging just 129,000 views a night in the key 18 to 49-year-old demographic in August of this year.”

“The country has moved on. Kimmel’s story is a warning to the entire leftist media apparatus: you can no longer dodge accountability for cozying up to the most radical voices on the Left,” Carpenter said. “Similarly, it’s good to see conservatives putting these corporations under scrutiny for the behavior of people like Kimmel. These entities earn vast sums of money on the basis that their broadcasts are within the ‘public interest,’” he observed. “I am not alone in wondering what public interest there is in bringing back a fame-addicted, extreme polemicist, like Kimmel, who is more than happy to enflame a deeply divided country in the wake of political violence.”