On September 17th, Trump-appointed FCC appointed Brendan Kerr called Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s murderer “some of the most sickest acts possible.” However, Kerr says his comments about Kimmel have nothing to do with ABC’s decision to suspend the late-night host.
In a conservative podcast last Wednesday, Kerr threatened ABC and its affiliates if he couldn’t “take action” with Kimmel. Carr implied that he would pursue allegations of “news distortion” against local ABC broadcasters, unless the FCC drops Kimmel. “Frankly, I think it’s been past time when a lot of these licensed broadcasters pushed Comcast and Disney back and said, ‘We’re going to take the lead – we won’t run Kimmel until we straighten this out,” he said.
Soon after, Nexstar Media Group, which has 28 ABC affiliates, said it was “strongly opposed to recent comments Kimmel made on the murder of Charlie Kirk, replacing the show with other programming in the market affiliated with ABC.” Sinclair, which operates 38 ABC stations, followed by the opening goal of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” – And the company especially thanked Carr for his comments. After the announcement of Nexstar, ABC said it has suspended Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Kerr celebrated the news about Kimmel’s bench and made a “roof-growing” gesture to CNN reporters with “office” Michael Scott and Dwight Schleut gifs.
On Monday, Kerr denied joining Kimmel Suspension. Appearing at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Kerr said, “Jimmy Kimmel is in a situation where he is in his assessment, not because of what happened at the federal level.” It repeated President Trump’s claim that Kimmel was “dismissed because of poor ratings.” Kerr also cited CBS cancellations, “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” They argued that the network was a “purely financial decision.”
However, according to Kerr, it wasn’t just a “bad review” that encouraged a pushback to Kimmel by the station group belonging to ABC. To hear his explanation, Nexstar and Sinclair independently decided that Kimmel’s show was not in the “public interest.” “We can do this in an easy or difficult way,” his comment was a hypothetical point about what the FCC would do if there were complaints of “news distortion” brought against Kimmel and the ABC, and despite Cal calling Kimmel’s comments, the FCC chairman “said credit for the illness.”
“It was the FCC that made me very clear in the context of Kimmel’s episode, and I am particularly not expressing my views on the ultimate merits that we had something that had something that was somehow submitted,” Kerr argued Monday.
After Carr’s comments at the Concordia conference, Disney said it had been reclaiming Kimmel since Tuesday. (When Kerr was asked to comment, he mentioned his speech at the meeting.) Sinclair said he would continue to take the lead, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” News programming and its “discussions are underway with ABC in assessing the potential returns of the show.” Nexstar said it would preempt Kimmel on Tuesday morning, “until we ensure that all parties are committed to fostering a respectful, constructive environment of dialogue in the markets we serve.” Nexstar, which requires $6.2 billion to acquire Tegna, requires FCC approval, has denied that comments from Carr had an impact on its decision.
Last week, critics accused FCC Carr of pressured ABC and local broadcasters to cancel Kimmel, saying his threat equaled a violation of the First Amendment. For example, California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Republicans of not believing in freedom of speech, saying, “They are censoring you in real time.” Following news that Kimmel is back on Tuesday night, Newsom posted on X.
In his speech at the Concordia conference, Kerr said, “I denounced the Democrats for completely misrepresenting the FCC’s work and what we’re doing. I had a letter from Senate Democrats who said that if they didn’t fire Jimmy Kimmel, the FCC threatened to revoke Disney and ABC’s licenses. But President Trump repeatedly threatened to use federal power to revoke the televised station’s licenses that would displease him.
However, Democrats were not the only ones who opposed Carr’s stance on Kimmel. Last Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he “dislikes what Kimmel said” and “I’m excited to be fired.” (Kimmel wasn’t “dismissed,” of course.) It compared Carr to a “Mafios” after the FCC chair threatened the broadcaster. “That’s going to be bad for conservatives,” Cruz said. “It’ll be time for Democrats to win again and win the White House. They’ll remove all the conservative America. They’ll remove all the podcasts. They’ll remove everything. They’ll silence us. (David Letterman also created a reference to the Mafia. The late-night legend, who spoke at the Atlantic Festival last Thursday, speaks to the author of The Godfather, about Carr’s comment, “The One Who Employs These Goons – Mario Puzo.”
Kerr said that Kimmel’s controversy is highlighted by the FCC’s goal of “being able to meet the needs of the local community with local television stations.” Again, national programmers like Disney like comcast show that they have no public interest and show much of Primetime, like Paramount, which is not approved by the FCC, without public interest.
Kerr mentioned a letter he sent to Disney CEO Bob Iger in November 2024. “One of the things we’re trying to do is think that local TV stations are out of balance because I think local programs have too much power,” the FCC chair said.
At the start of the session at the Concordia conference, Kerr commented: “I have not been so interested in the work of FCC since the great abolition of net neutrality in 2017 when FCC was said to lead to the end of the internet. I think those claims have as much de facto grounds as we are now seeing projection and distortion.”
Kerr expressed his disapproval of the late-night television host on the left. However, he constructed his views as mere meditations of his own, not as a policy position of the FCC that influences the market.
“I think part of that was going to the applause line because a lot of late night programs go to the laughing line,” Kerr said. “They came out of being court clowns who made fun of everyone. That’s comedy. They tease Republicans and mock Democrats. But instead of playing the role of court clowns, they became court clerics who enforce a very narrow kind of partisan view.
