Recommendations of the Editorial team
Jimmy Kimmel has found an unexpected ally in his dispute with Donald Trump: Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The MAGA Republican, who clashed heatedly with the president during the 2016 primaries before endorsing him, criticized the administration’s attempts to pressure Disney and ABC News to fire Kimmel.
“It’s not the government’s job to censor speech, and I don’t believe the FCC should act as a speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News about the Federal Communications Commission’s move to force ABC to apply for license renewals.
Cruz jumps in again
This isn’t the first time Cruz has defended Kimmel. Last fall, when Carr made similar threats against Disney and ABC, the Texas senator described the FCC chairman’s behavior as that of “a mobster.”
“This is straight out of Goodfellas,” he added at the time.
FCC chief Brendan Carr urged ABC to apply for license renewals this week – after First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump called for the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to dismiss. The trigger was a joke that Kimmel had made at an alternative presidential roast event that was held as a counterprogram to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – the dinner to which no comedian had been invited this time to poke fun at the president.
The joke and its consequences
Kimmel joked at his parody event that Melania Trump glowed “like a widow-to-be.” In the aftermath of the dinner, which was canceled after an armed man attempted to break into the ballroom, the presidential couple accused Kimmel of advocating violence against the president – and called for him to be removed from the program. “This was obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of pure joy you see on their faces whenever they are together,” Kimmel later clarified.
The Trump administration now appears to want to punish Disney for keeping Kimmel on the air. “There are many options. You have a license. Those licenses expire from time to time. You can advance the timing and say: We have significant concerns about whether your broadcasting is still in the public interest,” Carr told Katie Miller – the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – on her podcast. Carr added that if the commission concludes that ABC is not acting “in the public interest” – an obvious conclusion in an ideologically motivated, presidentially directed investigation – the FCC could take punitive action.
Repeated attacks on Kimmel
This isn’t the first time Carr has tried to force Kimmel off the program. Last year, the FCC chairman pressured Kimmel’s parent company to take him off the air or risk a license review – after the host sharply criticized Republicans’ politically charged response to the assassination attempt on Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
In response to this latest censorship attempt, Disney said the company has a “long-standing track record of fully complying with FCC rules and providing local communities with trusted news, emergency information and community-focused programming.”
The group added that it is confident that its own balance sheet “demonstrates our continued qualification as a licensee under the Communications Act and the First Amendment to the Constitution – and we are prepared to demonstrate this through the appropriate legal channels.”
