John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, stepped up to defend Jimmy Kimmel recently. He called Kimmel’s suspension a clear example of the government trying to stop free speech. Oliver, who is 48, strongly urged ABC and its parent company, Disney, to back Kimmel and his team. He described the pressure to take Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air as politically driven.
"There are ways to encourage them to do the right thing," Oliver said on his Sunday, September 21 show. "You could push them by canceling Disney+ or Hulu." He noted that Google searches for these cancellations have jumped in the last few days.
ABC announced on Wednesday, September 17, that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be paused indefinitely. This came after Kimmel’s comments about Tyler Robinson, the person accused of killing Charlie Kirk, two days before. Kimmel had said during his monologue, "Over the weekend, we hit rock bottom with the MAGA band trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as something other than one of them."
Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), demanded penalties for Kimmel. He even suggested that owners of TV networks should "stand up" to ABC. Carr said they should declare they would not air Kimmel’s show. On Wednesday, two major owners of ABC affiliate stations, Nexstar and Sinclair, confirmed they would indeed pull Kimmel’s program. This then led to ABC’s decision to remove the show nationwide.
"ABC and its parent company, Disney, still have a chance to do the right thing here," Oliver stated on Sunday. "I understand that the easiest path for them right now is to keep him off the air and the administration away from them." He added, "Though, I would like to point out, that was the apparent argument for ABC paying Trump $15 million last year, and how did that work out for them?" This referred to a defamation lawsuit settlement from December 2024 that Trump had filed against ABC News.
Oliver spoke directly to Disney CEO Bob Iger. He warned, "Giving the bully your lunch money doesn’t make him go away; it just makes him hungrier every time. They are never going to stop."
"At some point, you’ll have to try to draw a line. Why not do it here?" he continued.
Oliver pointed out that Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for a proposed $6.2 billion merger with another media company, Tegna. He suggested, "Nexstar desperately needs FCC approval. So it’s no surprise that when Carr specifically said companies should pull Kimmel off the air or face consequences, they complied quickly." Oliver sharply added, "Basically, Brendan Carr said, ‘Jump!’ and Nexstar took its penis out of its mouth just long enough to ask, ‘How high?’" Nexstar, for its part, declared on Thursday, September 18, that "The decision to interrupt Jimmy Kimmel Live! was made unilaterally by the Nexstar executive team, and they did not communicate with the FCC or any government agency before taking that decision."
Oliver also defended Kimmel’s original remarks that seemingly led to his suspension. "The thing is, Kimmel didn’t denigrate Charlie Kirk or downplay his murder," he explained. "The worst you can say is that he seems to have gotten the shooter’s ideology wrong." Oliver noted that this was a minor point. He believed Kimmel was trying to highlight that many on the right seemed eager to use Kirk’s death for their own gain. Oliver felt this argument made more sense given the entire Kimmel situation that followed.
"This Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point," Oliver warned later in the show. "Not because comedians are important, but because we are not." He ended with a stark thought: "If the government can force a network to pull a late-night show off the air, and do it right out in the open, it can do much worse things."