FCC Chief Carr Engages in State Cancellation by Getting Jimmy Kimmel Fired on the Threat of Revoking ABC's License
In a monologue, comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel derided conservatives for exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to “score political points.” They immediately proved him right, using threats from the FCC to get Kimmel’s show pulled from the air in an open exercise of government censorship.
The New York Times gives a basic description:
ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. …
In his opening monologue on Monday, Mr. Kimmel addressed the killing of Mr. Kirk by saying: “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.” …
[FCC Chairman Brendan] Carr, in a Wednesday interview on a right-wing podcast, said that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” about Mr. Robinson’s beliefs, and that the F.C.C. was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.” …
As F.C.C. chair, Mr. Carr wields power over the broadcast licenses that are granted to local TV stations by the federal government, which allow them to operate their businesses. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.
The musicians’ union that represents Kimmel’s band sums it up: “This is not complicated: Trump’s FCC identified speech it did not like and threatened ABC with extreme reprisals. This is state censorship.”
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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