The Kimmel Cancelation Is a Million Times Worse Than Colbert

If this isn't the government censoring speech, what is?

Photo from Chad Salvador via Getty.

When Colbert was cancelled, it was like a premature birth: The event didn’t surprise me, but the timing did. Everyone in late night knows that we’re¹ selling buggy whips in the age of the automobile, and Colbert’s financial are indeed terrible, but the timing — coming right as CBS’ parent company was trying to get government approval for a sale — stunk to high heaven. My theory was that Paramount knew that Colbert’s days were numbered, so they figured they might as well drop the ax at a moment when it would earn maximum brownie points with Trump. It’s kind of like how if you’re going to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you obviously want to do it before the Christmas/Valentine’s Day gift-buying season.

With Colbert, we don’t know how much politics influenced the decision. That’s not the case with Kimmel: It is crystal fucking clear that he has been yanked off the air for saying something that the government didn’t like. Here’s FCC chair Brendan Carr making it explicit that he threatened to revoke broadcast licenses if ABC stations didn’t pull Kimmel:

That’s not even a veiled threat — Carr is using the clearest words I can imagine to communicate that the government threatened to punish ABC if they didn’t stop airing Kimmel. This came two days after Trump threatened to “go after” ABC and less than a month after he urged the FCC to revoke ABC’s broadcast license for running “bad stories” about him. There’s no mystery to solve here; if this was a Hardy Boys book, it would be The Case of Government Censorship That Solved Itself Immediately And Left Us Free To Play Madden All Afternoon. The bad news is that no one in the administration understands the First Amendment, but the good news is that they’re so dumb that they’ll go on a YouTube show and say “Yes, we pressured broadcasters to suppress speech that we didn’t like…pretty cool, huh!?!?!?”

The mechanics of the situation are this: The FCC grants broadcast licenses to “affiliate” stations, and those affiliate stations hold a lot of power in the world of TV. Network executives lie awake at night fearing an affiliate revolt the way a tin pot dictator fears an army coup; affiliates have so much power that they once yanked a show in the middle of its debut episode. Two giants in the affiliate world — Nexstar and Sinclair, each of whom own dozens of stations — issued statements on Wednesday saying that they would stop airing Kimmel because of his remarks. Again, this is different from Colbert because Kimmel’s finances and contract and performance in the 18-49 demographic are irrelevant; Nexstar and Sinclair told us point-blank that they’re dropping Kimmel because of what he said. And then Brendan Carr went on Sean Hannity and praised the companies for their decision, in a move that will surely make the lawyers who eventually prosecute this case very happy.

It should go without saying that I think Kimmel’s statement was idiotic. Confidently asserting that Charlie Kirk’s killer was right-wing is endemic of the Bluesky Brain that has infected that show. But defending free speech inevitably involves defending idiotic and offensive statements — saying “cake is tasty” will not ignite a free speech crisis. Speech is always suppressed on the grounds that the statement in question was simply beyond the pale, and failing to defend the asinine remarks that make up the front line in the free speech wars validates the idea that the First Amendment goes away if the thing that was said was obnoxious enough.

Consider all the straight-from-his-ass standards for acceptable speech that Carr uses to justify his actions.² He says that broadcast licenses are contingent on operating “in the public interest”, asserts that broadcasters must not show a “pattern of news distortion”, and says that we need content that “serves the needs of our local communities”. Obviously: None of those words mean anything. That is mealy-mouthed, unconstitutional horseshit that sounds like it was spoken by a purple-haired activist on a TikTok show called Praxis for the People. Equally obvious: If such a standard for speech did exist, Trump and many of his allies would fail. Consider the very person to whom Carr made those statements: He was talking to Benny Johnson, a YouTuber who was fired from numerous journalism jobs for plagiarism and inaccuracy, and who once lied about being the victim of a shooting/arson attack. And the fact that Johnson didn’t hear Carr’s words and say “Oh no — that would really fuck me!” goes to show that the only standard that matters is “aligned with Trump/not aligned with Trump”.

This might be the most blatant violation of the First Amendment in my lifetime. And if you had any doubt that we’re being governed by malevolent children, consider this revelation from journalist Brian Stelter:

That’s right: Carr replied with a GIF. A GIF that will quite possibly be entered into evidence in the Supreme Court. This isn’t fascism — it’s something far dumber. But it involves the blatant suppression of the president’s enemies that should have us all worried.

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1. I don’t know if “late night TV” is a “we” or a “they”…how long do I need to be gone before it’s “they”?

2. The full interview with Carr is here.