ABC has announced it will bring back Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show after temporarily pulling the host off the air indefinitely following widespread backlash over his remarks regarding the recent killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Network officials said Monday that they had "thoughtful conversations with Jimmy" and ultimately "reached the decision to bring the show back on Tuesday."
Kimmel’s remarks largely targeted President Donald Trump and what he described as the 'MAGA Gang' of supporters, rather than focusing extensively on Kirk, a close Trump ally. In response, two of ABC’s largest affiliate owners, Nexstar and Sinclair, announced they would pull the show from their stations. ABC subsequently suspended the program.
Reacting to Kimmel’s reinstatement, Andrew Kolvert, spokesperson for Turning Point USA—the organization founded by Kirk—wrote on X: “Disney and ABC caving and allowing Kimmel back on the air is not surprising, but it’s their mistake to make. Nexstar and Sinclair do not have to make the same choice.”
On Monday, Sinclair announced on X that it plans to replace the returning Jimmy Kimmel Live! with news programming, noting that "discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return."
Nexstar did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. Kimmel, whose contract with the Walt Disney Co.-owned network runs through May 2026, also did not comment immediately on either his suspension or reinstatement.
Here’s what we know:
Jimmy Kimmel appears at the Walt Disney Television upfront in New York on May 14, 2019. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
Why was Kimmel’s show suspended and then reinstated?
ABC initially offered no explanation for the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has aired on the network since 2003. Meanwhile, Nexstar and Sinclair announced they would stop broadcasting the show, citing, respectively, "offensive and insensitive" remarks and "problematic comments regarding the murder of Charlie Kirk."
On Monday, The Walt Disney Co., owner of ABC, provided further clarification: “We made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”
A makeshift memorial grows in size at the Turning Point USA headquarters after the shooting death at a Utah college last Wednesday of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder and CEO of the organization, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr described Kimmel’s comments as "truly sick" and had warned that the network and its local affiliates could face consequences if Kimmel was not held accountable. On Monday, Carr denied that he had threatened to revoke ABC’s local station licenses over the remarks.
In reinstating Kimmel’s show, The Walt Disney Co. stated, “we have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
What did Kimmel say after Kirk’s death?
A day after the fatal shooting in Utah, Kimmel described Kirk’s death as a "senseless murder,' condemning both those who seemed to celebrate it and President Trump for attempting to shift blame onto the "radical left."
He addressed the aftermath on his show both Monday and Tuesday of the following week, criticizing the responses from President Trump and his supporters, whom he accused of "working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk."
Kimmel centered much of his commentary on the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson.
“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,” Kimmel said in his Monday monologue. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”
Kimmel said that Trump’s response “is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?” He also said that FBI chief Kash Patel has handled the investigation into the killing “like a kid who didn’t read the book, BSing his way through an oral report.”
On Tuesday night, Kimmel took aim at Vice President JD Vance, mocking his performance as guest host on Kirk’s podcast.
President Donald Trump attends a joint press conference with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers near Aylesbury, England, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (Leon Neal, Pool via AP)
How did Trump respond to the suspension?
Kimmel’s suspension coincided with broader efforts by Trump and other conservatives to monitor and influence public discourse following Kirk’s killing. It also represents the Trump-aligned movement’s latest attempt to shape the U.S. media landscape.
In a post on his Truth Social platform following Kimmel’s suspension, Trump praised ABC for "finally having the courage to do what had to be done," while asserting that Kimmel ''has ZERO talent.'' He criticized the host’s ratings and also took aim at other figures in late-night television.
At a news conference the next day during his state visit to Britain, the president asserted that ABC should have dismissed the comedian long ago. ''You can call that free speech or not, he was fired for lack of talent,'' he said.
How have others responded?
The suspension of Kimmel drew sharply divided reactions, attracting both criticism and commendation.
Former President Barack Obama posted on social media Thursday that the current administration had reached a ''new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.'' He urged media organizations to resist what he described as ''government coercion'' rather than yield to it.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, appointed under the Biden administration, wrote on social media, ''We cannot allow an inexcusable act of political violence to be twisted into justification for government censorship and control.''
Megyn Kelly, conservative podcaster and former Fox News and NBC personality, denounced Kimmel’s claim that Kirk’s killer could have been a Trump supporter, labeling it a ''vile, disgusting lie."
Others voiced alarm and concern over the implications for free speech, including actor Jean Smart. ''What Jimmy said was FREE speech, not hate speech. People seem to only want to protect free speech when it suits THEIR agenda,'' Smart wrote on social media, adding that she remained ''sickened'' by Kirk’s death.
Congressional Democrats later introduced a bill designed to strengthen free speech protections against government interference. While the legislation faces slim odds in a Republican-controlled Congress, it underscored widespread criticism of Kimmel’s suspension. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer also called for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to be removed from his post.
Photo: A U.S. flag is carried across a street in front of a demonstration in response to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show outside of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
