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OMG: Trump BANS Kimmel From TV For THIS...

12m 59s

OMG: Trump BANS Kimmel From TV For THIS...

A significant escalation in government censorship of free speech has occurred as Donald Trump’s FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, has targeted Jimmy Kimmel’s show by threatening to revoke ABC’s local television licenses if an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tolerico airs on network television. As a result, the interview has been moved exclusively to YouTube, bypassing traditional broadcast platforms. This action follows a pattern of similar censorship, including the 2025 blocking of a Colbert-Tolerico interview, and reflects the administration’s aggressive use of the equal time rule to suppress political critique. Critics argue that the FCC’s actions—threatening sanctions, initiating formal reviews, and pressuring broadcasters—are politically motivated and amount to an unconstitutional assault on free speech, particularly under the First Amendment. The decision has sparked concern about the erosion of journalistic independence, with major media companies like Disney and ABC now filing legal actions to defend against such regulatory overreach. The broader context reveals a coordinated industry response, where companies such as Next Star and Sinclair have preempted Kimmel’s show to align with political interests, suggesting a nexus of corporate power and political favoritism. Supporters of free speech, including Kimmel and Tolerico, are urging the public to watch and share the YouTube interview to amplify resistance and demonstrate public support. This moment underscores a growing fear that political power is being used to silence dissent, not just in media, but across American civic life, with implications for democracy and the future of open discourse.

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Alright guys, this is really important and you need to know about it. Donald Trump is now targeting Jimmy Kimmel and free speech once again. Last night on his show during his monologue, Kimmel revealed that he wanted to interview James Tylerico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, on his show. But Donald Trump's government, his FCC, his administration, said not happening. They threatened ABC, they threatened Disney, they threatened the local station, saying if this interview airs, we will take you off the air. There will be consequences and now the interview is not being displayed on the show. This is a direct attack on free speech. It's not the first time it's happened. It's not the first time that Trump has targeted Jimmy Kimmel and we need to spread this story around. It is that important. So please make sure to subscribe down below, drop a like on the video, comment, we're going to talk about all of this and more in this video. We're going to break it all down and let's get into it. So Jimmy Kimmel is moving this interview. It is not going on his show. And of course, as I mentioned, this is not the first time that Donald Trump has targeted Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel in Donald Trump's eyes is like public enemy number one for some reason. He really gets under Trump's skin. Trump saying in a recent social media post, I shouldn't say recent, it was back in April of 2026, but him going after Jimmy Kimmel saying, wow, Jimmy Kimmel, who is in no way funny as attested to by his terrible ratings, actually is really good ratings, made a statement on his show that is really shocking. He showed a fake video of the first lady, Melania and our son, Baron, like they were actually sitting in his studio listening to him speak, which they weren't and never would be. He then stated, quote, our first lady, Melania is here. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow, like, you know, these snowflakes are getting mad over a joke on a late night show. They call the Democrats snowflakes for many years, but then Jimmy Kimmel makes a joke they don't like and they freak out. A day later, he lunatic tried entering the ballroom of the White House correspondence dinner loaded up with a shotgun handgun and many knives. He was there for a very obvious and sinister reason. I appreciate that so many people are incensed by Kimmel's despicable call to violence, which it absolutely was not a call to violence. It normally would not be responsive to anything that he said, but this is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC. So Trump advocating for his show to be taken off the air. And I find it ironic and quite gross that Donald Trump is trying to play the moral high ground of what jokes you can and cannot make, especially when it comes to someone's life. When he has celebrated the death of political opponents like Robert Mueller or Rob Reiner, I mean, that's a small list. There are more than that. But, you know, that's who Donald Trump is. He's also said that in 2025, I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel's next. He has even less talent than Colbert. Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them, which is really just laughable. He also said in 2025 as well, why does ABC fake news keep Jimmy Kimmel and man with no talent and very poor television ratings on the air? Why do the TV syndicates put up with it also totally biased coverage? Get the bum off the air. This is the government censoring free speech. I mean, that's what it is. The president of the United States advocating for somebody to be fired because he doesn't like what he's saying. That is the definition of government censorship. And Donald Trump's administration, the people who work for him, listened because all the way back in 2025 around the time that Charlie Kirk was assassinated and Republicans were very sensitive around that time. Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson's show and threatened Disney, threatened ABC and threatened Kimmel saying we can do this the easy way or the hard way in terms of taking his show off the air. Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there's going to be additional work for the FCC. Again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt. We are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we, we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or licensed revocation from the FCC. We continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion. So I mean, you know, talk about news distortion. He works for Donald Trump, but he's being abundantly clear there. He's saying, easy way or the hard way you got to take down Kimmel or there will be consequences. And what happened after that, Kimmel got taken off the air, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel for a joke that he made about Charlie Kirk, which was relatively mild, but Republicans really got angry about it and his show was pulled off the air next star also announcing that they had preempted the show and that they were also not running it. This was a industry wide thing. All of these different companies involved in the airing of Jimmy Kimmel show came after him. They said, continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time. And we've made the difficult decision to preempt a show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue. Brendan Carr celebrated next star's decision saying, I want to thank them for doing the right thing. So this was like a coordinated thing. And Brian Stelter, a journalist, broke down why this really took place. What the real reason was for next star ABC and all these companies preempting the show taking it down. Next star already owns lots of TV stations. It wants to merge with techno, which owns lots of other stations. In order to do that, it needs Brendan Carr, the SEC chair's permission, and it actually needs the SEC to change the regulations entirely about how many stations an individual company can own. So, next star has all of this pending business before the government. Techno also does, and there's another big station owner called Sinclair that also has business pending before the government. So what do we know tonight? We know that both next star and Sinclair called up ABC this afternoon, complained about Kimmel, and said they were yanking the show off their stations. ABC subsequently yanked the show nationwide. So we know that two major TV station owners, both of which need to curry favor with the Trump administration, were the ones that most loudly and vocally condemned Kimmel and said they were going to not air the show tonight in the coming nights. It's all a corruption thing, it's all the money-making thing for people like this. That's what it is. Rarely, do a lot of these big business people stand up to Donald Trump, and it's great when it happens, but in the event of like next star and Sinclair and everything that happened with Kimmel, it was exactly that. They have a merger that they want to prove they need to curry favor with Donald Trump, and that's, in my view at least, a big reason as to why they did what they did. And that brings us to this moment where Jimmy Kimmel has had to move this interview with James Tolerico to a different location because he's not being allowed to air it on his show. And I will remind everybody that this is not the first time that Donald Trump's administration, his FCC, has not only gone after a late night show, but also James Tolerico himself. Remember, when Colbert had his show, he wanted to interview James Tolerico, but CBS said that he was not allowed to do it. So he put the interview on YouTube, and the lawyers were also like you're not allowed to do it. The interview on YouTube and the interview went viral. And luckily after that, James Tolerico raised $2.5 million. Because of Donald Trump trying to silence the interview, trying to silence speech. And so hopefully, the same thing happens now. But this is the breakdown of what Jimmy Kimmel is going through, what he detailed on his show last night. Check this out. Another late night talk show has preempted an interview with Texas State Rep James Tolerico. This time, it's ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. On Wednesday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel, he revealed that his interview with Tolerico, who's running for Senate as the Texas Democratic candidate, won't be aired on the shows over the air broadcast. Instead, it will be shown on YouTube today. So when that interview comes out from Jimmy Kimmel, I ask you as followers of mine, fans of mine, whatever it might be, just a casual viewer to watch that interview. We have to support people and shows and groups that are standing up to Donald Trump in this administration. So I'm going to watch the interview. I would highly recommend that you do it as well. I think we show some love to Jimmy Kimmel in this time, because again, he's being targeted by Donald Trump and show some love to Tolerico. Hopefully, we can get those donation numbers up to around two million or even more now. Kim will explain that the decision not to air Tolerico's interview on broadcasts came out of concerns that a politically motivated FCC has continually threatened ABC station licenses. Quote, out of consideration for our local stations, Kimmel said, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense. My interview tomorrow with James Tolerico will not air on television, he said. It will be posted on YouTube instead. It will not be on TV. Now, in February, of course, the late show with Stephen Colbert was also told it couldn't run that interview with Tolerico. At the time, CBS lawyers had barred Colbert from airing the interview in a preemptive bow to FCC pressure over the agency's push to apply its equal time rule to late night talk shows, which really have never been applied for the record. Donald Trump is just using this archaic rule to punish people he doesn't like. Ultimately, the Tolerico campaign raised all of this money and the YouTube interview and clips garnered 9.5 million views. Kimmel has reasons to be concerned. Under the FCC chairman Brendan Carr, the agency has arguably been weaponized as it aggressively takes on critics of the Trump administration. That includes threatening to pull the licenses of ABC's eight-owned and operated local TV stations, demanding ABC take action against Kimmel last year by saying we can do this easy way or the hard way and initiating a formal review of whether ABC daytime talk show the view qualifies for an exemption to the agency's equal time rule for political candidates. This is not all. That's kind of like a small list of what Donald Trump's FCC has done, what Brendan Carr has done, but that is a direct attack on free speech. I remember during the 2024 campaign when Donald Trump said it's the Democrats who are coming after your speech. They want to make it so that you can't say what you want to say, you can't speak your mind. But that is literally Donald Trump's America that is happening right now. [BLANK_AUDIO] Democrat or you have a late night talk show where you're saying something that Donald Trump doesn't like you better watch out that's the message they're sending you better watch out we're coming for you that is so authoritarian it's so dictatorial and what's even more scary than that is that it's not just Donald Trump who's doing it which is bad enough but the mega fans are supporting it these supposed free speech warriors are no longer free speech warriors they just love speech that they like not speech they dislike that's really really what it comes down to as a result ABC sued the FCC alleging the commission was waging an extraordinary assault on its free speech rights and Disney and ABC have actually stood up for Kimmel recently after that whole fiasco in 2025 with Kimmel and having a show taken down they said in a lawsuit that they're going to fight any of these inquiries by the FCC which is great Kimmel noted that political candidates appeared on late night talk shows for generations including when Trump appeared on his show in 2015 quote but for some reason and I can't seem to figure out what the reason is something has changed now that he is president Kimmel said his FCC has threatened me he threatened our show threatened our network ABC are affiliates are local stations based on simple traditional editorial decisions guess bookings it would seem that they don't like later he added quote so if you want to learn about a candidate for the Senate tomorrow you have to go to the Jimmy Kimmel live YouTube channel where you will see it in it you will see it in its entirety and thank goodness we have that because in America the America we live right now at least that is the best we can do until November of course make sure you register to vote by the way because that's the most important thing you can do which is very wise advice by Jimmy Kimmel but this is yet another assault on the first amendment it's yet another assault on free speech and I ask that you share the story around talk to your friends family and love ones about it because the stakes in November are high but stories like this remind us just how high they are every aspect of American life our rights our freedoms our culture whatever you want to call it Donald Trump is coming after he's trying to shape in his view he wants an America where you and I cannot be doing what we're doing right now you can't watch me criticize this administration and I wouldn't be allowed to criticize this administration on the show that's what he wants and people in the republic and say oh it's fear mongering when you say that really how many examples do we need of Donald Trump targeting free speech whether it be kicking the associated press out of the oval office barring them from events because they don't want to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America or taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air or suing media agencies and outlets because Donald Trump just wants to make a quick buck from them you know this is really concerning stuff so look I'm not trying to rant too much but this is this is genuinely scary so I will leave the video there thank you so much for watching please make sure to subscribe down below drop a like on the video make sure to watch the Jimmy Kimmel interview with James Tallerico let's get it everywhere let's make it go viral support Kimmel support Tallerico have an amazing rest of your day imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day come the grip no tightness no stickiness no residue just plump to a hydrated skin that still feels like your skin try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline New York maybe it's Maybelline and we will talk soon

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Donald Trump’s FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, has threatened to revoke ABC’s station licenses and pressured the network to remove an interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Tolerico from television broadcasts.
  2. The interview was moved to YouTube instead of airing on ABC’s over-the-air platforms, citing concerns for local stations in Texas that could face regulatory penalties under politically motivated FCC actions.
  3. This incident is part of a broader pattern of targeted censorship, mirroring past actions against Jimmy Kimmel, including when Stephen Colbert’s interview with Tolerico was blocked, and reflects a systemic effort by the Trump administration to silence political criticism through regulatory pressure and economic threats.

Summary:

A significant escalation in government censorship of free speech has occurred as Donald Trump’s FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, has targeted Jimmy Kimmel’s show by threatening to revoke ABC’s local television licenses if an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Tolerico airs on network television. As a result, the interview has been moved exclusively to YouTube, bypassing traditional broadcast platforms. This action follows a pattern of similar censorship, including the 2025 blocking of a Colbert-Tolerico interview, and reflects the administration’s aggressive use of the equal time rule to suppress political critique.

Critics argue that the FCC’s actions—threatening sanctions, initiating formal reviews, and pressuring broadcasters—are politically motivated and amount to an unconstitutional assault on free speech, particularly under the First Amendment. The decision has sparked concern about the erosion of journalistic independence, with major media companies like Disney and ABC now filing legal actions to defend against such regulatory overreach. The broader context reveals a coordinated industry response, where companies such as Next Star and Sinclair have preempted Kimmel’s show to align with political interests, suggesting a nexus of corporate power and political favoritism.

Supporters of free speech, including Kimmel and Tolerico, are urging the public to watch and share the YouTube interview to amplify resistance and demonstrate public support. This moment underscores a growing fear that political power is being used to silence dissent, not just in media, but across American civic life, with implications for democracy and the future of open discourse.

FAQs

The interview was removed from ABC's over-the-air broadcasts due to threats from the FCC, specifically under Chairman Brendan Carr, who claimed political concerns about the interview would harm local stations in Texas.

The interview is being posted on YouTube instead of television, ensuring it remains accessible to viewers despite its removal from ABC's broadcast schedule.

Yes, the FCC has threatened ABC and other broadcasters with license revocation or penalties for airing interviews with political candidates, including those involving opposition figures like James Tolerico.

While Trump himself did not directly threaten Kimmel, his administration, through FCC actions and public statements, has pressured broadcasters to remove content, framing it as a defense of free speech.

Many observers view this as government censorship, as the FCC is using regulatory power to suppress political speech, particularly from critics of the Trump administration.

Colbert’s interview with Tolerico was also blocked by CBS and later aired on YouTube due to FCC pressure, leading to widespread public attention and a successful campaign that raised $2.5 million.

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