President Trump brushed off claims on Thursday that late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s indefinite suspension is an attack on free speech, saying he was pulled off the air because of low ratings.
“He had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago,” Mr. Trump said. “So you can call that free speech or not; he was fired for lack of talent.”
Speaking at a joint press conference with Keir Starmer at the British prime minister’s Chequers residence, Mr. Trump blasted the TV host for saying “horrible things about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.”
ABC announced Wednesday night that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be taken off the air “indefinitely” because of remarks he made about the killing of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.
In his monologue Monday night, Mr. Kimmel suggested that the shooting suspect, Tyler Robinson, killed Mr. Kirk because he wasn’t conservative and accused Republicans of exploiting the death for political gain.
Charging documents filed this week against Mr. Robinson don’t ascribe a motive but offer clues that the suspect leaned left and said Mr. Kirk “spreads too much hate.”
“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, doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Mr. Kimmell said on his show.
He went on to criticize Mr. Trump’s reaction to news of Mr. Kirk’s death by playing a clip of the president responding to a question about the assassination by talking about the White House ballroom.
He said Mr. Trump was mourning his friend “the way a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Shortly before ABC’s announcement, Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar Media, one of the country’s largest TV station owners, said it would stop airing the show after Mr. Kimmel’s comments. In a statement, Mr. Alford called the comments “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.
“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue,” Mr. Alford said.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday that Mr. Kimmel appeared to “mislead” the American public about the facts regarding Mr. Kirk’s murder.
“The issue that arose here, where lots and lots of people were upset, was not a joke,” Mr. Carr said during an interview with CNBC. “It was not making fun.
“It was appearing to directly mislead the American people about a significant fact that probably was one of the most significant political events we’ve had in a long time.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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