It has been less than a week since Disney and ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air for what was supposed to be an indefinite suspension over Kimmel’s remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk, which were actually remarks about how President Donald Trump and his MAGA sycophants don’t actually care about Kirk and are using his death to clout chase — which is demonstrably true.
Well, on Monday, the Walt Disney Co. announced that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be back on Tuesday night, making his “cancellation” the most short-lived MAGA bluff since the Trump administration was threatening to arrest Barack Obama for a crime they conjured out of their big, stupid MAGA imaginations.
Actually, Disney execs now appear to be pretending they never intended to remove Kimmel’s show for good, and it was all just the network erring on the side of caution because “our country” is still “emotional” over the death of a Christian nationalist bigot. (I might be paraphrasing a bit.)
“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. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” a Disney spokesperson told CNN. ” 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.”
Sure, Jan.
As we previously reported, Kimmel’s response had nothing to do with Kirk himself; it was about Trump and his minions scoring political points off the right-wing podcaster’s death while showing zero signs of actual grief. Nothing about what Kimmel said was “insensitive” to Kirk, which makes it far more likely that it was the pressure from Trump and the FCC that prompted the action the network took. Disney execs also probably saw those projections of all the potential financial losses they could suffer as customers cancel their Disney/Hulu subscriptions in protest of Kimmel’s firing.
It turns out that bowing down to the federal government as it plays fast and loose with free speech can have unintended consequences.
“I am glad to see Disney find its courage in the face of clear government intimidation,” Anna M. Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, told CNN. “More importantly, I want to thank those Americans from across the ideological spectrum who spoke loudly and courageously against this blatant attempt to silence free speech.”
“It will continue to be up to us as citizens to push back against this Administration’s growing campaign of censorship and control,” Gomez continued.
Welp, Kimmel’s return is sure to disappoint MAGA supporters who were ecstatic about the display of censorship and government overreach because they got to watch a liberal get “cancelled,” but it’s a good look for the nation, which is observably slipping further and further into authoritarian rule.
This is how we resist!
SEE ALSO:
Jimmy Kimmel Show Pulled Over Charlie Kirk Remarks
Understanding The First Amendment And Why We Need To Protect It
