The Media Research Center had been spewing hate all year at Jimmy Kimmel for his failure to be a good right-winger, which continued after Kimmel commented on the death of Charlie Kirk. When the hate campaign got the desired reaction from ABC, comedy cop Alex Christy — the MRC’s point man in its anti-Kimmel crusade — gloated in a Sept. 17 post:
ABC is taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air after the late night host claimed on Monday that “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.”
Wall Street Journal media reporter Joe Flint tweeted late Wednesday night, “BREAKNG: Disney’s ABC is pulling Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely after late night host’s recent remarks about Charlie Kirk. Move comes as ABC affiliate groups told network they would be dropping the host.”
That could be a reference to a press release from Nexstar which said, “the company’s owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ for the foreseeable future beginning with tonight’s show. Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”
Variety also confirmed the news and Sinclair announced its affiliates would be airing a tribute to Kirk in Jimmy Kimmel Live‘s place and “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.”
Christy didn’t mention the likely ulterior motives behind those station groups’ objections to Kimmel. Nexstar is seeking Trump administration approval for a merger with another TV station group, Tegna — shades of CBS canceling Stephen Colbert after its parent company got federal approval for a merger, a linkage the MRC continues to deny — and Sinclair has always been a right-wing owner that injects its politics into local programming (something the MRC also denies). Still, he continued to lecture:
Kimmel’s hyper-partisanship being his downfall is poetic. Over the past two years, Media Research Center studies have found Kimmel to be the most partisan of the late night hosts. 2025 now appears to have claimed three late night shows. First, CBS’s After Midnight’s Taylor Tomlinson called it quits, then CBS announced that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be ending next year, and now Kimmel is a likely third.
Christy has adamantly refused to examine the partisanship of right-wing late-night host Greg Gutfeld, so he has no actual factual basis on which to make that statement.
Curtis Houck whined that non-right-wingers dared to defend Kimmel:
CNN’s The Lead happened to be on-air as word came that ABC had suspended liberal late-night host Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely following conspiratorial and vile remarks Monday mocking President Trump and conservatives for mourning last week’s assassination of Charlie Kirk. Before CNN went nearly wall-to-wall with coverage as though there had been a mass shooting, host Jake Tapper and chief media analyst Brian Stelter leapt to his defense.
[…]Having set the table, he began to spin by insisting Kimmel was merely “expressing what we’ve heard some other liberals say in recent days that the motives are unclear and that maybe the suspect in this case was a Republican or was some sort of far-right fringe figure.”
“Of course, there has been a lot of discussion about that in recent days. There’s a lot of evidence pointing in other directions about the suspect, but Kimmel was on the air talking about this, making a very serious commentary amid his jokes,” Stelter added.
Houck surprisingly didn’t challenge the fact that the Trump administration, along with his employer, have been targeting late-night hosts for not being right-wingers:
Stelter floated what’s become a dominant narrative that a conspiracy was afoot as FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told “a far-right webcast” (Benny Johnson) hours ago that “Disney needs to see some changes here” and “[w]e can do this the easy way or the hard way” with “companies…find[ing] ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
After Stelter pointed out local TV conglomerate Nexstar had stepped up and said their ABC affiliates (which there are over 30) wouldn’t air Kimmel, Tapper insisted Kimmel’s comments “can be read in several ways.”
Stelter huffed this came on the heels of CBS saying in July it’d cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert come May 2026 and concluded “[i]t is clear that pro-Trump allies have been trying to target ABC over Kimmel for several weeks now, and tonight they’ve prevailed.”
Houck then gushed that “Thankfully, moderate Republican and legal guest Joseph Moreno burst Tapper’s bubble about the divisive state of late-night comedy.” There was no apparent reference to Gutfeld’s divisive comedy. He also failed to mention that Nexstar is seeking federal approval for a merger.
Jorge Bonilla huffed:
Disney/ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely in response to backlash subsequent to his statements regarding the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, wherein he misrepresented the shooter’s motive and falsely said the shooter was MAGA. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Acela Media appear more upset about the loss of Kimmel’s show than they are about Kirk’s assassination.
The story broke during the 6PM hour, and the spin started immediately. Watch Brian Stelter come on and try to gaslight the public into believing that what Kimmel said was “serious commentary”:
[…]Sure, Kimmel was “expressing what we’ve heard some other liberals say in recent days.” But that’s precisely the problem, no? Kimmel joining those other liberals in suggesting, without evidence that the shooter was some MAGA diehard, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary- including the evidence contained in the probable cause affidavit released on Monday before Kimmel came on the air.
Bonilla concluded by ranting:
If there is a consistent theme to coverage of l’affaire Kimmel as sampled above, it is to mourn it as this broad, McCarthyite assault on the First Amendment. The reality is that the show was ripe for cancellation, as was Colbert’s before him due to it losing money, and the despicable remarks subsequent to the Kirk assassination provided Disney with a dignified offramp.
Bonilla didn’t mention that the FCC’s Carr effectively threatened ABC into punishing Kimmel. Bonilla’s headline weirdly referred to those defending Kimmel as “Regime Media” and Kimmel as a “regime comic” despite the fact that the “regime” they purportedly serve is no longer in power (Bonilla’s preferred regime is, which is why we call the MRC “Trump Regime Media”).
He then followed up with another post:
The ramifications of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension are far-reaching and cannot yet be fully assessed. One consequence looks to be particularly painful.
In a press release Sinclair makes clear that, as the nation’s largest ABC affiliate group, they will not return Jimmy Kimmel Live! to air unless certain conditions are met.
[…]One only imagines what went through Kimmel’s mind upon discovering that his newly available timeslot will be given over to a special honoring the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk. The apology and donation conditions are a painful blow as well, and while it is unclear whether Kimmel’s show will return to ABC, it is crystal clear that he’s not coming back to Sinclair air unless these conditions are met.
All Kimmel had to do was proffer some harmless expression of concern and sympathy to the family. Or, he could’ve said nothing. Instead, he chose to spread baseless theories about the shooter despite a body of publicly available evidence to the contrary. Free speech is and remains free, but one is never exempt from any consequences that may follow. Kimmel is learning about that the painful way.
Bonilla didn’t mention the fact of Sinclair’s right-wing bias likely influencing that decision. As it turned out, Sinclair backpedaled on that plan, posting the Kirk special on YouTube instead.
Despite the MRC being eager to label Kimmel’s remarks as “vile” and “despicable,” it had a different take on remarks that were objectively more vile and despicable. In 2012, Rush Limbaugh went on a three-day tirade of hate against Sandra Fluke, a law school student testifying on Capitol Hill to advocate for President Obama’s policy of requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of contraception for women. Limbaugh denigrated Fluke as calling Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute” and repeatedly asserted that she sleeps around. Despite Limbaugh’s disgusting misogyny being plain for all to see, the MRC rushed to his defense by dismissing his words as mere humor; then-chief Brent Bozell would admit only that Limbaugh “crossed a line” and raged that people were trying to get advertisers to dump LImbaugh’s show (which aired on the same public airwaves as Kimmel). Other MRC employees also defended Limbuagh and smeared Fluke.
The MRC then started an “I Stand With Rush” website, which asked visitors to state that “I stand with Rush Limbaugh and appreciate the massive contribution that he has made to the conservative movement and our nation over the last 25 years. Rush has apologized. But the radical left will never accept it because they despise him and want him off the air” and laughably portraying his hateful misogyny as a “commonsense conservative message.” There was no demand for Limbaugh’s firing or FCC intervention with the stations that aired his show or fretting that Limbaugh was facing the consequences of his “free speech.”
The MRC has yet to explain why Limbaugh’s vicious hate was so worth defending but Kimmel’s comments demand his firing.