The Walt Disney Company announced that Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show will be back on the ABC airwaves on Tuesday, days after the host was indefinitely suspended over remarks he made following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“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,” Disney said in a statement Monday. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”
Disney said, “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.”
Turning Point USA, the youth engagement organization Kirk co-founded, criticized the decision.
“Disney and ABC caving and allowing Kimmel back on the air is not surprising, but it’s their mistake to make,” Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said on social media. “Nexstar and Sinclair do not have to make the same choice.”
Mr. Kimmel and his late-night show were yanked from the airwaves after Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, made it clear that Disney should penalize Mr. Kimmel regarding comments he made about Kirk’s alleged killer.
In a monologue last week, Mr. Kimmel ran with the conspiracy theory — bandied about on social media and by television talking heads — that the alleged assassin was part of President Trump’s movement.
“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,” Mr. Kimmel said.
The family of the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is conservative, but they said he had been moving toward the political left. Law enforcement officials say he had a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female, feeding into the speculation that he targeted Kirk, a conservative activist and President Trump ally, because of his comments on transgender issues.
Mr. Trump and his supporters cheered the Kimmel suspension. They said the move was a long time coming for a host who had spent years disparaging conservatives, the MAGA movement and Mr. Trump over the public airwaves.
They said it made sense for Mr. Kimmel to be taken off the air because his message does not resonate with large swaths of the country, likely hurting Disney’s bottom line.
Democrats and their allies in Hollywood had a different take, accusing Disney of caving to the Trump administration and running roughshod over First Amendment rights.
Mr. Carr helped fuel the fire by suggesting that Disney should do something about Mr. Kimmel over his remarks.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Mr. Carr said on a podcast.
Soon after, Nexstar, which owns of numerous ABC affiliates across the country and is seeking FCC approval for a merger with Tegna, which also owns several ABC affiliates, said “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was getting pulled from its programming.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and other conservative lawmakers said Disney and the major ABC affiliates are free to respond as they wish to Mr. Kimmel, but stated that Mr. Carr should not have put pressure on the company.
“He says, ’We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’” Mr. Cruz said of Mr. Carr on the podcast. “That’s right out of ’Goodfellas.’ That’s right out a mafioso coming into a bar going, ’Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”
The Disney announcement comes after Mr. Trump, numerous members of his Cabinet, and roughly 100,000 people turned out to memorialize Kirk in Arizona on Sunday. Turning Point USA organized the event, which also featured Kirk’s wife, Erika, who forgave the shooter and vowed to make the organization stronger as its new leader.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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