WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has used threats, lawsuits and government pressure as he remakes the American media landscape, unleashing his long-standing grievances against an industry that has mocked, criticized and scorned him for years.
He has extracted multimillion dollar settlements, forced companies into costly litigation and prompted changes to programming that he found objectionable.
In his latest victory, ABC announced on Wednesday that the Jimmy Kimmel show would be taken off the air for the comedian's comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel's remarks included references to the suspect's disputed political ideology.
Hours before ABC’s decision, Brendan Carr, Trump’s handpicked head of the Federal Communications Commission, warned that ABC and its local affiliates could face repercussions if Kimmel was not punished.
“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said, referencing ABC's parent company. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
It was the kind of brute force response that Trump and his loyalists have routinely flexed since the Republican president returned to the White House with a vow to retaliate against critics and political opponents. Trump's reach has extended deep into the private sector, using the apparatus of the federal government to pressure companies to make changes that can reshape the public dialogue.
At a news conference Thursday during his state visit to Britain, Trump said Kimmel “said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.” The president said Kimmel "had very bad ratings and they should have fired him a long time ago." He added: "You can call that free speech or not, he was fired for lack of talent.”
Trump has already reached settlements with ABC and CBS over their coverage He has filed defamation lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Republicans in Congress stripped federal funding from NPR and PBS. At the FCC, Carr has used his influence at the country’s communications regulator to target diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to root out what he describes as liberal bias.
Trump’s efforts appear to be escalating after Kirk’s assassination, with broader implications for the future of free speech protections that have been a bedrock of the American political system.
Attorney General Pam Bondi recently said that “we will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Her words alarmed advocates who fear an elastic definition of the term could be used to criminalize dissent.
The First Amendment is widely viewed as protecting even the most disparaging remarks, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a 2017 decision that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”
Bondi later revised her comments to say she was focused on “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence.”
Todd Blanche, Bondi's deputy, suggested that protesters could have violated the law by yelling at Trump while he visited a restaurant near the White House.
"Is it sheer happenstance that individuals show up at a restaurant where the president is trying to enjoy dinner in Washington, D.C., and accost him with vile words and vile anger?" Blanche said. He said authorities could investigate whether it's “part of an organized effort to inflict harm and terror and damage to the United States."
Politics and comedy collide on late-night shows
As a celebrity real estate developer and reality television star before entering politics, Trump has been fixated on his public image and media coverage even more than most presidents.
He often complains about mockery from late-night comedy hosts, whose shows remain television landmarks even as their influence wanes in the country's increasingly diffuse media environment.
The latest episode began Monday night, when Kimmel began talking about last week’s shooting of Kirk, which took place while Kirk was speaking on a college campus in Utah.
“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,” Kimmel said. He also compared Trump's grief over the death to “how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Trump allies said Kimmel was falsely suggesting that the shooter was right wing. Authorities have not formally presented a motive for the killing, but evidence indicates that he held liberal beliefs. Gov. Spencer Cox, R-Utah, has said “there clearly was a leftist ideology,”
On Wednesday, Carr appeared on a podcast hosted by Benny Johnson, a conservative commentator, and accused Kimmel of the “sickest conduct possible." Carr said "you could make a strong argument that this is sort of an intentional effort to mislead the American people about a very core fundamental fact.”
Carr placed the move against Kimmel in the broader context of Trump's efforts to undermine the power of legacy media companies.
“He smashed the facade that they get to control what we say, what we think, the narrative around events," Carr said. "And we’re seeing a lot of consequences from President Trump doing that.”
Reminding affiliates that their broadcast licenses come with an “obligation to operate in the public interest," Carr said “it's time for them to step up” and say Kimmel's content “isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities.”
Kimmel faces corporate backlash
It didn't take long for Nextstar Media Group, the country's biggest operator of television stations, to echo some of Carr's language.
“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 have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue," Andrew Alford, president of Nextstar’s broadcasting division, said in statement.
The controversy landed at a sensitive time for Nextstar, which needs FCC approval for its $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna.
ABC soon announced that Kimmel would be taken off the air. It is unclear when or whether he would return. Kimmel has not commented publicly.
Later in the evening, the television company Sinclair said its stations would carry "a special in remembrance of Charlie Kirk” on Friday during Kimmel’s usual time slot. The company also asked Kimmel to apologize to Kirk’s family and donate money to Turning Point USA, the conservative group that Kirk turned into a political powerhouse.
The news of Kimmel's suspension broke after midnight in Britain, but Trump soon posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, to celebrate what he called “Great News for America.”
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he wrote.
Then he said more dominoes should fall, calling for the cancellation of shows by Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
“Do it NBC!!!"