ABC yanks Jimmy Kimmel's show 'indefinitely' after remarks about Charlie Kirk
258 comments
·September 17, 2025mrandish
kylebenzle
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StumpChunkman
What causes very active discussions like this to drop off the front page so quickly?
I saw another newer post that was probably made because the poster didn't see this post, and a comment made in there linked to this discussion.
afavour
They get flagged. Eventually flagging removes a post entirely but even a couple of flags cause it to slide down the rankings pretty quickly.
jihadjihad
Coming soon: broadcast is pulled after host’s comments disparage the current administration.
jszymborski
That is unironically what happened here. The comments Kimmel made here did not disparage Kirk, but rather the administration's reaction to his shooting.
ProllyInfamous
I am largely neutral on this particular assassination, as I knew almost nothing about Mr. Kirk prior to his departure (just name recognition & basic political associations).
But I do think, after decades of reflection, that comedians (of any color) are correct when they point out that racial humor shouldn't be off limits to any performer, of any color, but is... e.g. Owen Benjamin, Chappelle, Seinfeld
pessimizer
Where was the joke? It was simply an aggressive political statement that has been repeated thousands of times in the past few days. It's sort of typical for this sort of situation from their political opponents: those whiny people are so busy pointing fingers and acting like victims that you almost forget the actual victim.
I'm not saying "where was the joke" as in it isn't protected speech, political speech is even more important to protect than jokes. But there's no joke here, typical of the last 10 years of Trump comedy. They're using this is an excuse to get rid of him; the media is shifting from anti-Trump mode to Trump mode. Everybody is rebranding.
I'm sure Jon Stewart is going to come out with his new "boy, woke people are crazy" show on Paramount a year from now.
boznz
"Assassination" implies somebody paid for it. "Murder" is more apt.
theoreticalmal
Who paid Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, or Gavrillo Princip? Assassination is a subset of murder, with political motives. It seems very accurate in this situation
ProllyInfamous
I won't speculate publicly, but were I placing bets: a former US Executive(s) would be my biggest wager.
----
Here's to the First Wives' accomplishments: among them his name was Seth Rich.
Waterluvian
I’ve never seen this interpretation of the word before. Usually that’s a “hit.”
An assassination is a murder if someone notable, often for political reasons.
ProllyInfamous
¿por que no los dos?
In this particular assassination, there's currently nothing more than official allegations & captured footage.
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throwmeaway222
It is an assassination, look up the definition.
andrewchambers
I've seen a large number of comments online saying the shooter was a trump supporter - I don't really understand where that information comes.
I feel like this is the sort of thing a prediction market might be able sort out.
realz
Wow, Kimmel getting canceled wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card.
tptacek
Keep in mind that Kimmel has been hinting about retiring for a couple years now, his contract was up in the air, the "late night television show" category is evaporating (if there's still even a Tonight Show in 10 years, it'll be purely for nostalgia), and this sends Kimmel out in a blaze of glory.
I think it's too easy to sort of anthropomorphize these kinds of conflicts --- Kimmel's show has a large staff, and he's responsible for their livelihoods --- but it wouldn't be totally out of the question that Kimmel steered right into this.
There's nothing new about this, though: ABC also took Bill Maher off the air, 20 years ago, almost identical circumstances. Maher wound up at HBO. Kimmel will wind up on a podcast, and, like Conan, probably gain in relevance.
Moments later
I think some people here might be too young to immediately get the Maher reference, but the point there was: he was forced off the air for political reasons as well.
Gee101
I wonder if, from a staffing perspective, it's actually easier to cancel a show under these circumstances than through a more traditional cancellation process.
magicalist
> There's nothing new about this, though: ABC also took Bill Maher off the air, 20 years ago, almost identical circumstances
Leaving aside "similar things have happened before, therefore we shouldn't care about things" nihilist take, this doesn't even appear to be true.
I don't remember the firing that well, but looking it up now, ABC didn't renew his contract, which meant he was kept on the air for another 9 months after he made his comments just 6 days after 9/11. This was also several months after the Sinclair Broadcast Group stopped showing the show on their affiliates.
So not at all similar to the "snap to attention" apparently here.
tptacek
Please don't put words I didn't say in between quotation marks as if I had said them.
moogly
> There's nothing new about this, though
Threats from the head of the FCC bandied about on a far-right podcast? Hello?
mooreds
Here's a video of the Maher reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1c672...
bigyabai
Deeeeeeeefinitely not the political angle. Anything but, really.
ranger_danger
I got downvoted for saying the same thing... go figure.
throwawaylaptop
I thought this was because he said the Charlie Kirk shooter was a Republic maga guy, when there was already more than enough info showing he wasn't and anyone in media would know that.
jimmydoe
so far it seems the kid is friendly to trans, and loves guns, which fits neither lefty or maga labels. rushing to conclusion seems peak american idiocracy
wikipedia
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throwawaylaptop
[flagged]
stonogo
He didn't say that, though? He said MAGA was trying to pin him on anyone else. He never asserted anything about the shooter himself.
tptacek
That's kind of what I mean by steering directly into this.
throwawaylaptop
So he misinformed millions of people for the sole purpose of getting fired from his job instead of just resigning? Nice guy.
ranger_danger
> more than enough info
Source:
BolexNOLA
the WSJ has faced no repercussions for all their initial reporting either. It’s ridiculous.
Bud
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nabla9
The era of TV-talk shows is already ending, so it's easy for companies to agree to censorship. These moves just quicken the end of the talk-show era. More profitable and successful shows seem to be immune for now, and South Park goes harder than ever.
wnevets
That free speech crowd has been very very quiet the last week
sointeresting
The 1st amendment doesn't protect your job and doesn't grant you the right to a tv show.
So strange how people that actually support limiting the 1st amendment are now outraged by someone simply losing their job.
"... our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence. So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you're free to be able to implement change." - John Kerry
huh
markoman
Except that Kimmel's job was speech. He had a microphone -- and depended upon that (supposedly God-given) freedom of speech to perform that job. If he lost that job due to something that right didn't guarantee, then I'd understand. His dismissal's cause had nothing to do with a failure on his part. Instead we now have the government, specifically concerned with his criticisms of it, effectuating this block of Kimmel's speech and thereby ending his job. The government is supposed to guarantee your right to criticize it. What happened here?
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mayh4ps
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jjfoooo4
I expected Kimmel to have somehow criticized Kirk, a dubious enough reason to pull the show. But this isn’t even that. Comments quoted in stories assert that the shooter was MAGA - maybe that’s somewhat controversial, but it’s ludicrous to suggest it’s offensive.
That paired with comments criticizing the Dear Leader were enough. This is a new low in corporate cowardice toward Trump bullying.
nabla9
Stop criticizing large corporations as moral entities. They have no other incentives other than money. Corporations are amoral (not good or bad). Only money matters.
South Park can go on because they make money. Talk-shows are already dying and cutting them is easy choice even under mild pressure.
The value talk they use is PR aimed at stakeholders (customers, employees, government). No company has taken a stance where they willingly accept net negative returns if they have other choice.
potato3732842
>Stop criticizing large corporations as moral entities. They have no other incentives other than money. Corporations are amoral (not good or bad). Only money matters.
Not just corporations, every institution from the church to every silo in your government to big nonprofits. The latter ones just have less measurable goals than profit, but they sociopathically seek their goals all the same. Beyond a certain scale organizations staffed by humans no longer act human.
throwmeaway222
It's extremely relevant. The person grew up "conservative" and was radicalized to the left in college. The reason this is important is that it's a trend. If the trend isn't acknowledged on the left, then it will just continue.
pppp
Nexstar, who initially threaten to pull Kimmel's show from all (200) of its stations and started this ball rolling, owns ALL THREE OF OUR LOCAL network affiliate stations. All 3 in one market. Remember when this was illegal?
magicalist
> Nexstar, who initially threaten to pull Kimmel's show from all (200) of its stations
They also have a $6.2 billion bid for even more local stations by acquiring Tegna, a deal which will have to be approved by the guy at the FCC who yesterday was telling local affiliates to threaten to pull Kimmel's show!
https://apnews.com/article/nexstar-tegna-newsnation-cw-trump...
pppp
Sorry, after the Tegna deal they will own all three stations in my market. Essentially, the viewpoints we see will be determined by one man.
alpha_squared
I'm unsure where we as a society go from here. The left's cancel culture resulted in the firing of private citizens from their jobs, or at least some reprimand. The right's cancel culture is the full weight of the federal government brought down against opposition, in stark violation of the First Amendment; that is, until the Supreme Court can find some new carve-out for why this isn't protected speech.
Realistically, how could anyone be okay with the level of power this administration is wielding? I struggle to see a peaceful transfer of this specific set of powers. Unless the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly."
slumberlust
Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.
moogly
> the assumption is just that the left will always behave "more responsibly."
Probably true, which means you're in for a full-blown dictatorship for, oh, 30 years or so before (perhaps) some violent revolution.
JohnFen
We start by rejecting the cartoon labels of "left" and "right" as if all conservatives or all liberals believe the same things and think the same way. The left/right division is a longstanding technique intended to keep us divided.
The reality is that outside of the actual extremists, liberals and conservatives agree on 80% of everything. We can, and need to, start there. We are all Americans and have to realize that just because we may disagree about things (particularly a small percentage of things) doesn't have to mean we're enemies.
But, if history offers any lessons, then our path is likely set and we're going to have to push through some nightmarish times before we find a way to be better.
mikepurvis
It's astonishing how bad the US political apparatus is at making progress even on matters that easily fall within that 80%, though— healthcare reform, childcare, higher education, common sense gun laws, infrastructure investments.
All of this stuff should be a slam dunk to implement with broad coalitions no matter who holds which branches, and yet it's all been basically gridlocked for decades, and instead it's never-ending turmoil over meaningless nonsense like who uses what bathrooms.
mrtesthah
A small number of extremely wealthy individuals have a vested interest in fomenting that division, because the solutions to those 80% issues happens to conflict with their business interests.
We really need to stop the cancelling of people for saying controversial, disagreeable and even deeply offensive things. I don't agree with what Kimmel said and I wouldn't have said it myself but it also wasn't outside the bounds of opinions which should be able to be expressed.
If you're nodding along in agreement, then you should also know my long-term commitment to consistency in tolerating factually wrong, distasteful, divisive and even hateful speech has also left me in the uncomfortable position of defending (at least in part) the right of Charlie Kirk, JK Rowling and many others I don't agree with to be heard without anyone calling for silencing them. I'm 100% supportive of disagreeing, debating, peacefully protesting, ignoring and even mocking ideas we don't agree with but I draw a hard line at shouting down, deplatforming or canceling them. If you just stopped nodding along, and instead started coming up with reasons why Kimmel should be heard but Charlie Kirk shouldn't, then you might be part of the problem. IMHO, the only truly defensible ethical high-ground on this requires consistency regardless of the person, politics or offense their speech might cause.