Senator Ted Cruz warned on Friday that conservatives will begin to regret using state power to silence Jimmy Kimmel.
The Republican senator appeared on his podcast, “The Verdict with Ted Cruz,” saying he “hate what Kimmel said,” and “I’m excited that he’s been fired.”
However, he also said FCC chairman Brendan Kerr sounded like a “maphios” when he threatened to chase his broadcast license in response to Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s murderer.
“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.
Kimmel was pulled out of the air on Wednesday hours after Cal threatened Carr to “take action” against ABC affiliates if Disney did not act. There are no plans yet to bring him back into the airwaves.
Kimmel touched on conservative rage in his monologue Monday, saying that the “Maga Gang” is “deeply trying to characterize this child who murdered Charlie Kirk as something other than them.”
President Trump has expressed his full support for Kerr. Speaking to reporters on Thursday in Air Force 1, he issued his own warning to broadcasters that he should lose his license to be critical of him.
Cruz, who lost to Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, agreed that Kimmel’s remarks were out of scope and that corporate media was leaning towards conservatives.
“They’re dishonest,” he said. “They are liars.”
And he said Kimmel “had laughed at me so many times I couldn’t count.” However, he argued that trying to shut down speeches the government disliked was “incredibly dangerous.”
“It might feel good now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel,” he said. “But when it’s used to silence all the conservatives in America, we regret it. And again, I like Brendan Kerr, but we shouldn’t be in this business. We shouldn’t blame it. What Jimmy Kimmel said is, it’s okay to say it’s dishonorable, he shouldn’t take away the air.
Cruz also said Kimmel was “seriously troublesome” after Trump’s victory, saying he “breaked the late-night comedy.”
“When Donald Trump came to the White House, his brain melted,” Cruz said. “I can’t see it now.”
