Jimmy Kimmel's show has been suspended "indefinitely" over a comment about Charlie Kirk.

WashingtonABC announced Wednesday that it has indefinitely suspended comedian Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show over a comment he made Monday about the murder of Trump activist Charlie Kirk. The comedian emphasized how, once known the identity of alleged killer Tyler Robinson, it turned out he came from a Trump-supporting, gun-loving family. The program's blackout is yet another symptom of the suffocating witch hunt that Trumpism has launched against anyone who doesn't align with the official White House position, and it shows how this persecution isn't just directed against left-wing movements. On the contrary, their demonization fair is the starting point.

"We've hit rock bottom with MAGA gang [the acronym for the Make America Great Again movement] trying to paint this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as something other than them for political gain," the host said Monday. Kimmel then showed a clip of a reporter asking Donald Trump how he was grieving Kirk's death. Trump renovating a new White House ballroom. Faced with the cold shoulder from the president who has spent his days capitalizing on the assassination, Kimmel joked about the stages of grief, referring to the construction work: "He's talked about the fourth stage of grief: construction."

The words did not please the MAGA mob, who in recent days have turned X into a kind of public bonfire where influencers Trump supporters have taken to attacking anyone—anonymous or well-known—whom they accuse of celebrating Kirk's death. Many of the victims are singled out for critical comments highlighting the activist's far-right rhetoric.

In Kimmel's case, Fox joined the wave and added the host's commentary from behind the gallows, full of pointing fingers, against alleged mockery of Kirk's death. Public pressure and criticism from an extreme right that no longer needs to hide behind freedom of expression because it now controls the White House and the algorithm boiled over until ABC finally gave in.

But the voice that finally made the network decide to suspend the program was that of Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Carr, one of the authors of the ultra-conservative Project 2025 plan, harshly criticized Kimmel's remarks on Wednesday morning and called for his dismissal. "We can do it by fair means or foul," he warned. If the network didn't do what was needed, the FCC would have "options to consider" to ultimately get her fired.

Carr's threat revived the specter of the $15 million ABC agreed to pay Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit the president filed against the network. The mogul sued over statements made by journalist George Stephanopoulos regarding his civil suit for sexual assault against writer E. Jean Carroll.

Dominating the Media and Technology

Trump appointed Carr to lead the FCC, the very body to which he dedicated a chapter of Project 2025 explaining how it should work in order to regulate even large technology companies such as Apple, Meta, Google, and Microsoft. According to Carr, these companies pose a threat to "individual freedom" in the United States through the supposed expulsion of certain political points of view from their platforms. The only platform that he did not consider a threat to freedom of expression is X, which is in the hands of Elon Musk. The current chairman of the FCC at the time found that conservative opinions were "silenced" on the networks. Now that he has come to power, he has called for the head of a comic book for highlighting the paradox of the family origins of Kirk's killer and pointing out how Trumpism is capitalizing on it for political gain.

President Donald Trump, although in the United Kingdom where he is visiting It's dawn, he celebrated the suspension of the late show few minutes that was known. "Good news for America: Jimmy Kimmel's ratings-challenged show has been canceled," he wrote on Truth Social, where he also congratulated the network "for finally having the courage to do what needed to be done." He added: "Kimmel is completely talentless and has worse ratings than even Colbert, if that's possible."

Stephen Colbert is the host of another CBS late-night show known for its criticism of Trump. In the summer, despite its strong ratings, the company decided not to renew Colbert's next seasonThe network justified his departure on economic grounds.