Fellow late-night show hosts used a mix of humor, expressions of solidarity and even a song to respond to the suspension of ABC host Jimmy Kimmel in their shows on Thursday.
Jon Stewart, who made a special appearance to skewer Kimmel’s suspension, opted for satire to critique ABC for suspending “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely following comments Kimmel made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Stephen Colbert, whose show was canceled by CBS two months ago, called Kimmel’s suspension “blatant censorship.”
Meanwhile, NBC’s Jimmy Fallon praised Kimmel and vowed to keep doing his own show as usual. Then an announcer spoke over him and replaced most of his critiques about President Trump with flattery.
Their guests the day after Kimmel’s suspension varied widely. Fallon’s guests were actor Jude Law, journalist Tom Llamas and actor and singer Jonathan Groff — none of whom addressed Kimmel’s situation.
Stewart and Colbert interviewed guests who could address censorship concerns raised by Kimmel’s suspension. American and Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa spoke to Stewart.
When Stewart asked Ressa, the author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” for tips on coping with the current moment, Ressa recounted how she and her colleagues at the news site Rappler “just kept going” when she was faced with 11 arrest warrants in one year under the Philippines’ then-President Rodrigo Duterte.
“We just kept doing our jobs. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other,” Ressa said.
Kimmel’s show was “preempted indefinitely” by ABC on Wednesday following comments he made about the reaction to Kirk’s killing on Monday and Tuesday nights. The suspension came after media giant Nexstar announced in a news release that it would indefinitely preempt Kimmel’s show on all its stations due to the host’s remarks. Sinclair Broadcast Group, another major station owner, also said it was pulling the show.
Nexstar has a deal pending to purchase Tegna, a smaller rival, for $6.2 billion, and needs the Federal Communications Commission to approve it.
“The decision to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision,” a Nexstar spokesperson told CBS News in an email Thursday.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr also said his agency had a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.
Kimmel has not commented.
Stewart’s show opened with a voice-over promising adherence to the party line.
“We have another fun, hilarious administration-compliant show,” it said.
He lavished praise on the president and satirized his criticism of large cities and his deployment of the National Guard to fight their crime.
“Coming to you tonight from the real (expletive), the crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?” Stewart said.
“The Daily Show” set was refashioned with decorative gold engravings, in a parody of the new gold accents that Mr. Trump has added to many parts of the Oval Office.
Stewart fidgeted nervously with his notes as though he was worried about mis-speaking or deviating from his talking points. When members of the audience reacted with an “aww,” he whispered, “What are you doing? Shut up. You’re going to (expletive) blow this for us.”
He took on a more stilted tone when he started describing Mr. Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom, calling the president “our great father.”
“Gaze upon him. With a gait even more majestic than that of the royal horses that prance before him,” he said.
Stewart normally hosts only on Mondays. The Emmy winner helmed “The Daily Show” from 1999 through 2015, delivering sharp, satirical takes on politics and current events and interviews with newsmakers. He returned to host once a week during the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Fallon opened his “Tonight Show” monologue addressing Kimmel’s suspension.
“To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on. And no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy, and I hope he comes back,” he said.
Colbert started his monologue on Thursday with the animated song “Be Our Guest” from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” but replaced the lyrics with “Shut your trap. Shut your trap.”
He later addressed Kimmel directly, saying he stands with him and his staff.
“If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive,” he said.
He also responded to remarks Carr made that it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming, “they determine falls short of community values.”
“Well, you know what my community values are, buster? Freedom of speech,” Colbert said to loud applause from his audience.
When Colbert talked with New Yorker editor David Remnick about Kimmel’s suspension, he said: “What we are seeing now is the government acting at the direction of the president of the United States to put pressure on, to manipulate, to silence and even to shut down institutions of the free world.”
David Letterman, Colbert’s predecessor on “The Late Show,” lamented the networks’ moves.
“I feel bad about this, because we all see where see this is going, correct? It’s managed media,” Letterman said during an appearance Thursday at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York. “It’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.”
He added that people shouldn’t be fired just because they don’t “suck up” to what Letterman called “an authoritarian” president.
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