ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel's show "indefinitely" over Charlie Kirk comments

Kimmel delivered a monologue on Tuesday night accusing the right wing of working to "capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk."

By William Hughes | September 17, 2025 | 7:14pm

Jimmy Kimmel, Screenshot: YouTube

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Sometimes the machinery of the right-wing tattle machine can move with shocking swiftness. We were, for instance, just in the midst of writing up FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threats against ABC and talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!—in which Carr, fresh off helping to bully Paramount and CBS News into submission, suggested ABC affiliates complain to parent company Disney about Kimmel’s comments on the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk—when news broke that those threats had come to fruition. First, news broke that Nexstar, which owns a bit more than 10 percent of all the ABC affiliate stations in the U.S., was intending to preempt Kimmel’s show in favor of other broadcasting. Then the big shoe dropped: ABC, per Deadline, has announced that Kimmel’s show is being taken off the schedule “indefinitely.”

All of this, presumably, due to the monologue that Kimmel delivered on his show on Monday night, in which he noted that “many in MAGA-land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.” While making jokes about JD Vance and noting the Department Of Justice’s recent removal of a study showing right-wing violence “outpaces” attacks from the left, Kimmel didn’t mince words: “The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

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These comments and jokes provoked accusations of being “the sickest conduct possible” from Carr, who told podcaster Benny Johnson that “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Nexstar, meanwhile, was a bit vaguer, simply saying in a statement that it “Strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.” It added that it did not view broadcasting Kimmel as being in “the public interest”—a line also trotted out by Carr in his efforts to invoke legal authority against ABC for broadcasting Kimmel’s show.

As for ABC, it’s staying as quiet as it can, issuing a simple “Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be preempted indefinitely” in a statement to Deadline, and declining to share any further details.

News of Nexstar’s principled stand on the issues comes just a month after the massive broadcast group announced it was acquiring rival station owner TEGNA, which owns or operates 68 American TV networks. The press release announcing the acquisition specifically thanked the Trump administration for initiatives enabling the purchase.