Screenshot of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
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Garrett Gravley is a Program Counsel for campus rights advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He holds a Juris Doctor from UNT Dallas College of Law, has freelanced for the Observer since 2018, and is now based in Philadelphia. Below is an op-ed he wrote about Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension from the airwaves and what it means for the future of free speech in the United States.
Last week, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel just hours after FCC Chair Brendan Carr directed a thinly veiled threat at the media giant over comments Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said on Benny Johnson’s The Benny Show. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr’s message was a clear example of a government pressure tactic known as “jawboning,” and though ABC reversed the suspension days later, returning Kimmel to the air with an emotional yet triumphant monologue on free speech, the damage had been done. Kimmel was off the air for three episodes, and President Donald Trump took the opportunity to encourage even more censorship, saying on Truth Social, “That leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News [sic] NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”
Consider the events that immediately followed Carr’s comments the same day. Nexstar, an Irving-based company that owns various ABC affiliate stations, suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its programming. Sinclair, another media company that owns ABC affiliate stations, followed suit. Then Disney, which owns ABC, announced Kimmel’s indefinite suspension, thus shutting production down entirely.
The justified backlash against Disney/ABC was swift, prompting them to switch sides. On Monday, the media giant announced that the show would return to the air. The show’s “welcome back” monologue amassed a record of over 14 million YouTube hits in 16 hours. CNN data analyst Harry Enten reported that a typical monologue on the show rakes in roughly 240,000 YouTube views. That’s over 5,000% growth, courtesy of the Streisand effect.
Still, we must not let celebration temper our vigilance. As FIRE Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere said recently in a Washington Post op-ed, “The law denies the [FCC] ‘the power of censorship’ as well as the ability to impose any ‘regulation or condition’ that interferes with freedom of speech.”
That Trump’s administration chilled protected speech notwithstanding the law is distressing. Jawboning is unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court unanimously held last year in NRA v. Vullo. In that case, the state of New York pressured financial institutions and insurance companies to sever ties with the gun rights organization in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the opinion, “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.”
Yet that is exactly what happened here. We just witnessed the FCC attempt to coerce Disney to suppress Kimmel’s speech, just as New York attempted to coerce financial institutions to suppress the NRA’s advocacy.
Carr’s influence wasn’t the only factor. Outrage over Kimmel’s remarks was already building. A New York Times analysis of “thousands” of posts and media mentions found that criticism started “as a whisper, then eventually as a shout.” Breitbart covered it, Newsbusters’ Alex Christy wrote an X post that drew 15 million views, Fox’s The Five picked it up, The Blaze host Auron MacIntyre called for Kimmel’s firing, another viral post demanded his “career completely destroyed,” and Elon Musk weighed in: “Jimmy Kimmel is disgusting.” But it was Carr’s podcast threat that pushed the outrage into overdrive. As the Times noted, the anger “became apoplectic” after his remarks. His intervention should have carried no weight, yet instead it was a force multiplier.
Another cause for concern in this otherwise triumphant moment is that Trump made it abundantly clear his sights are still on Kimmel, according to a Truth Social post on Tuesday night.
Trump continued, “He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers!”
The First Amendment abuses do not stop there. On Sept. 15, Trump filed a shakedown lawsuit against The New York Times for $15 billion in response to unfavorable coverage. That same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to target Americans for “hate speech” — she then walked her comments back after conservative outrage.
Moments like these are why our country needs an unflinching devotion to the First Amendment. They serve as a good reminder that, eventually, the shoe always ends up on the other foot. As Sen. Ted Cruz put it, “It might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel, but when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.”
That is no apocalyptic bluster. Under both Republican and Democratic leadership, FIRE has stood firm against First Amendment abuses regardless of which wing or team color it comes from. The tendency for power to target disfavored views or ideas transcends party lines and can only be contained with a consistent, principled application of the First Amendment. As FIRE President Greg Lukianoff wrote recently in a New York Times op-ed, “The weapon that you reach for today will be used against you tomorrow.”
Kimmel’s return is worth cheering, but unless we resist each attempt at government-driven censorship, the next suspension may not be so brief.
