Trump’s latest free speech triumph – the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel

And how’s that going seven months on? On Wednesday night, comedian Jimmy Kimmel was suspended as host of his late-night ABC chat show after making comments in the public square Vance and his ilk disagreed with.

Kimmel was yanked off air indefinitely over comments he made about the shooting of right wing podcaster Charlie Kirk, who was killed in Utah last week. Celebrating the announcement, President Donald Trump said the suspension was “great news for America”.

Earlier this week, Kimmel said during his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, that the “MAGA gang” was trying to score political points off Kirk’s killing, criticised flags being flown at half mast in honour of the hardline influencer and mocked Trump’s reaction to the shooting. “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,” he said. 

Kimmel had, however, taken to Instagram on the day of the killing to condemn the attack and send “love” to Kirk’s family.

Reacting to the suspension, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

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Kimmel may not have been suspended directly on the orders of Trump or Vance, but it’s not difficult to see why they are central to ABC’s decision.

The US journalist Jake Tapper  urged his viewers to “follow the money” in a video posted on X, pointing them towards the financial motivations of Nexstar, the media company which runs ABC-affiliated stations across the United States.

Nexstar wants to buy its rival, Tegna, but the deal would need the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the US media regulator now chaired by Trump appointee and loyalist Brendan Carr. He announced in May that he “would be willing to entertain” letting  the merger go ahead.

But this week, with the deal still in the balance, Carr criticised Kimmel’s comments and called on local TV stations to stop showing Kimmel’s programme. The popular host’s suspension followed hours later.

Kimmel is the second late-night US TV host to be effectively sacked at MAGA’s behest in two months. In July CBS announced that it would end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with it being widely thought his criticisms of the president being to blame. Paramount, CBS’s owners, were pushing the Trump administration to approve the sale of the network to Skydance, a media company.

Vance has been vocal in his calls to end so-called restrictions on free speech in the UK. When he was here last month, he said: “The United States under the Biden administration got a little too comfortable with censoring rather than engaging with a diverse array of opinions.” 

Perhaps it’s time to send deputy prime minister David Lammy to Washington to give the folks there a lecture!