After a major uproar over the cancellation of his show, ABC’s parent company Disney decided to reverse course and bring Jimmy Kimmel back. The return was eagerly anticipated but if Trump and his critics expected Kimmel to tone down his mockery of him, they would be disappointed, as you can see from this segment that aired last night as Kimmel did not pull his punches. I thought that he hit pretty much the right note.
Jimmy Kimmel returned to air on Tuesday night, calling government threats to silence comedians “anti-American”, as he broke his silence about the suspension from ABC which ignited a national debate over free speech and outcry over the bullying tactics of the Trump administration.
…Later in the monologue, Kimmel hit out against Trump, saying that the president “did his best to cancel me” but that “instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show.”
Kimmel added that “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. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke.”
“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,” he added.
Trump, who had gloated in the immediate aftermath of Kimmel’s indefinite suspension, is clearly mad about his return.
Around an hour before Kimmel’s return on Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Kimmel and criticized ABC for allowing the comedian’s show back on air.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back” Trump wrote on Tuesday night. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”
“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this,” Trump added.
“Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative,” Trump said, seemingly referring to the settlement he reached with ABC News last year in a defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network.
This is why you should never try to appease Trump. He is like a blackmailer who is never satisfied and keeps coming back and demanding more. Companies like Disney with deep pockets should fight him all the way. Of course, being a major corporation, the bosses there are likely to be sympathetic to Trump but at the same time, they have to be forced to realize that they cannot afford to alienate too many of their viewers either.
The gangster-like rhetoric of the FCC chair Brendan Carr in threatening Disney resulted in huge outpouring of indignation from people across the political spectrum. Kimmel predicted that Trump’s efforts to have him removed would backfire.
After playing a clip of Trump ridiculing his low ratings, the host pointed out that the row had brought huge attention to his comeback, and sent back some ridicule in return.
“He tried his best to cancel me,” Kimmel said. “Instead he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now.”
Preliminary data suggests that he was right. A large number of people tuned in for Kimmel’s return.
The monologue Jimmy Kimmel delivered on his return to late-night television had been seen nearly 19 million times on Google’s
YouTube and Meta’s (META.O) Instagram by early Wednesday afternoon. Kimmel’s Tuesday night monologue had 13.3 million views on YouTube and 5.6 million on Instagram, as of 1:30 pm Eastern. Broadcast ratings for Tuesday’s show were not yet available.
The chances are that people who had never watched his show before tuned in because of all the furor, so he may have actually gained viewers despite the decision by some local affiliates owned by right-wing networks like Sinclair and Nexstar to not carry his show. If his ratings remain high, they may be forced to reconsider because they will be losing advertising revenue and money is the god they worship.
You’d think the idiots would have heard of the Streisand effect.
@Rob Grigjanis:
The thing about the Streisand Effect is, everybody thinks that all those other people that got hit by the Streisand Effect messed up, but they know what they’re doing so it’s definitely going to work for them.
Also, to be honest, since when has Trump ever had second thoughts when he feels insulted and aggrieved? It’s rare enough that he has second thoughts even when he doesn’t feel that way.
It’s true. I rarely watch Kimmel, but his monologue last night was a must see.
Between the blatant violation of his rights to free speech, and the nazi hate rally of CK’s funeral, a lot of the people who voted for maga because they thought they were good christians are experiencing a cognitive break.
The white homeschooling mommies are finally waking from the brainwashing. It’s not even about left vs right.
It’s about time they finally start noticing the hate hidden in the dog whistles, as they are a key demographic in those red states.
@2 -- ” It’s rare enough that he has second thoughts even when…”
It’s rare enough that he has FIRST thoughts.
The preliminary Nielsen ratings are out and Kimmel’s soared.
My TV broke several months ago, so I have been an online viewer exclusively. Now, with both ABC and CBS kissing POTUS ass, it’s going to be a cold day in Hell before I buy another TV.
Also, I was just about to subscribe to Hulu to get Only Murders in the Building, but now that ain’t gonna happen until they fire Bob Iger.
@ 3 Tethys
Quite.
I never heard of the guy prior to the furore, and if I was American I would have tuned in. 🙂
This was news even here in Europe.
https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/09/25/record-ratings-for-jimmy-kimmels-return-despite-abc-affiliates-refusing-to-air-show
@ Tethys, 3: I have come to learn recently that facts simply don’t matter to some people. They can see something contrary to their beliefs happen right in front of them, but they will refuse to engage and instead cling to their brainwashing.
@Katydid:
Sadly, yes. Once someone makes falsehoods part of their personal or tribal identity (and it’s pretty clear in a lot of cases that people don’t actually come by these beliefs through anything even close to understanding of the situation, it’s just a matter of ‘these are the things I have to say I believe in to be an accepted member of the tribe’), they often not only refuse to change their minds when confronted with reality, they will treat any attempts to correct them as a personal attack and respond accordingly. It takes work to break through that sort of motivated reasoning, and while it can happen, it usually requires a conflict with some other belief held just as deeply. This isn’t just a ‘far
That’s part of why the utter dehumanization of their opponents is so dangerous; once you include ‘our enemies are demonic and will say or do whatever they think will lead us astray’ to the cluster ideas, not only does that justify hurting their opponents, it makes it easier to simply ignore anything anybody says that doesn’t match with their existing beliefs, because obviously their opponents are following the orders of the Prince of Lies and just lying to them.
@10, jenorafeurer, yes, 100% what you posted. I just had a friendship-ending discussion with someone who insisted that the Covid vax gave her father “turbo-cancer” and killed him. The problem? Her father died in 2017. I had to emergency-renew my passport and flew to the funeral.
So I took a snapshot of the headstone from her fakebook page and sent it to her, highlighting the date of his death. Covid-19 didn’t even exist in 2017, there was no way the Covid vax (which was developed in 2020) killed him--because he had been dead for 3 years by that point. Her response? She accused me of bullying and “trying to silence” her. Then doubled down on the “turbo-cancer” story.
Wow, Katydid, your former-friend’s father gained access to Obama’s time machine!
@ 10, jenorafeuer.
Like xtianity, which I determined while I was still a child is based on outright lies.
@ 12, anat: Thanks for the laugh! Yes, indeed, Obama must be lending out his time machine now.
And, to tie in with @10, jenorafeuer, and @13, this friend who is irrational about the Covid vax killed her father before it actually existed, over the past decade, this friend has swapped the church of her birth and upbringing for a megachurch of no certain denomination. Her need to believe what her church tells her to has overriden all else. It’s clear her allegiance to her chosen tribe overwrites love of her family and willingness to grasp reality.
Let’s hope Kimmel’s employing company, and media outlets in general, learned a lesson: Trump only knows greed and dominance. If you capitulate to him and think a $16M payoff will keep him satisfied long term, you are wrong. Once he holds a grudge, he will always return for another payday until the company is dust or is wholly subservient.