Jimmy Kimmel is back and he’s made it clear he won’t be backing off Trump jokes any time soon.
In his 28-minute returning monologue Tuesday, Kimmel showed viewers an interview clip of Trump gloating over Kimmel’s suspension, declaring that Kimmel “had no ratings.”
“Well, I do tonight!” Kimmel replied, to mass applause from his audience.
“You almost have to feel sorry for him,” Kimmel said. “He tried his best to cancel me, instead he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly.”
Kimmel then criticized Trump for his blatant attacks on free speech in his treatment of comedians.
“The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs,” Kimmel said. “Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”
Referencing the speculation that late-night host Stephen Colbert had his show canceled by CBS for political reasons, not financial ones, Kimmel continued:
“[Trump] was able to squeeze Colbert out of CBS, then he turned his sights on me, and now he’s openly rooting for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows.”
“We have to speak out against this,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel didn’t just accuse Trump of being callous about American jobs. Kimmel posited that Walter Cronkite would be “spinning in his grave” about the broad attempts to censor the press. He drove the point home that the president’s behavior was craven and unpatriotic.
“Look, I never imagined I would be in a situation like this. I barely paid attention in school,” Kimmel continued. “But one thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American. That’s anti-American.”
Kimmel’s monologue comes exactly one week after his comments on Republican reaction to Kirk’s murder drew heavy backlash from MAGA supporters.
The exact words Kimmel said last Tuesday were: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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.”
The next day, Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly condemned Kimmel’s words, calling them, “really, really sick.”
Carr threatened legal action against ABC if they didn’t remove Kimmel’s show from air, telling them, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Within hours, TV affiliate giants Nexstar and Sinclair announced they would be preempting Kimmel’s show, and soon ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! entirely. The network said the host would be suspended “indefinitely.”
Kimmel addressed the FCC chair’s threats head-on, saying Carr’s comments were “a direct violation of the First Amendment,” and “not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public.”
The move was criticized even by some prominent Republicans. Sen. Ted Cruz, for instance, called Carr’s actions “dangerous as hell” the day after Kimmel’s show was first pulled. Kimmel made sure to thank the Texas legislator, joking, “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is right. He’s absolutely right.”
After severe backlash from countless celebrities, politicians, unions, and viewers, Disney announced Monday that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would return to television.
Both Nexstar and Sinclair are still refusing to air Kimmel’s show on their local stations. Sinclair’s terms for the host’s return include asking Kimmel to apologize and to “make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk Family and Turning Point USA.”
Shortly before the episode aired, President Trump complained about Kimmel on his Truth Social account and threatened to sue ABC for letting him return.
“[Kimmel] is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution,” Trump wrote. “I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do.”
