‘The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart Lays Out ‘Cynical Ploy’ Behind the Government Cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel

Some critics of the Trump administration and its Federal Communications Commission would claim that the government's recent move to publicly intimidate ABC and the Walt Disney Company into indefinitely suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! was a premeditated attack on the free press for which the inciting incident was a peripheral concern — but not Jon Stewart. He loves Dear Leader almost as much as he loves remaining employed.

Yesterday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a right-wing podcast and publicly admonished ABC and its many local affiliates for continuing to air Jimmy Kimmel Live! following the host’s Monday evening monologue, wherein he castigated the conservative power structure for rashly forming political narratives around the alleged shooter in the murder of Charlie Kirk. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr warned. ”These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” 

Within a couple of hours, the companies controlling the vast majority of local ABC affiliates publicly condemned Kimmel and Disney CEO Bob Iger suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely.

Carr, Trump and the rest of the conservative media machine have claimed that this strong-arming from the FCC was necessary to stop the spread of disinformation and division during such a sensitive moment in American history. However, as Stewart laid out in tonight’s episode of The Daily Show, “Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republican governance.” 

Of course, those naysayers don’t have late-night shows that they’re trying to save.

As Stewart explained in the faux-obsequious tone that scored the entirety of The Daily Show’s opening segment, Kimmel’s comments during his Monday night monologue on Jimmy Kimmel Live! were in no way the motivation behind Carr’s unprecedented move to publicly threaten America’s most powerful media companies with serious consequences if they didn’t comply with government censorship doctrines. No, the supposedly controversial statements made by Kimmel by ABC were simply the excuse that Carr used to carry out directives that Trump has publishing out in the open since Stephen Colbert got the ax. 

Hell, Kimmel’s criticisms of the official party lines on Kirk’s alleged killer weren’t even factually incorrect, as many of Kimmel’s critics have claimed. It’s been widely misreported that Kimmel claimed the shooter was a MAGA conservative, when he actually said that the right-wing power structure was “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.” 

But, ultimately, the details of Kimmel’s latest televised criticisms of the Trump administration don’t actually matter — all that matters is that they were his last.