Jimmy Kimmel Says FCC’s Demands Are ‘Latest Attack on Free Speech’

As the Federal Communications Commission considers new equal-time mandates for late-night talk shows and daytime talk show The View, Jimmy Kimmel accused the government agency and its Donald Trump-appointed chair, Brendan Carr, of a partisan attack on free speech. “Trump and his Brendan Carr-tel is coming for us again,” Kimmel said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday, referring to Carr’s previous threats over the comedian’s Charlie Kirk assassination comments. “They’re reinterpreting long-agreed-upon rules to stifle us.” As Kimmel explained to viewers, the equal-time rule emerged in the Radio Act of 1927 and later applied to television, mandating that over-the-air broadcasters “give equal time for legally qualified candidates” in a political race.