Stephen Colbert Is the Only One Who Really Knows Jimmy Kimmel’s Pain
In the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, Stephen Colbert came out with a blowtorch tonight, roasting not only the President but Disney and Trump’s FCC. “With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” he said. “And if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.”
Colbert called out all the players — affiliate owner Nexstar and Disney — who have major mergers they’re trying to push through with government approval. To Colbert, it sounded awfully familiar. “So a company apparently capitulating to the whims of the President in order to ensure their merger goes through? Has that ever happened before?”
Of course it has, and Colbert is the phantom host who’s still haunting late night to talk about the stranglehold that Trump has over the nation’s media. “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel,” he said at the top of his monologue, but he’s the only one who can say it with authenticity.
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Of all the comics talking about Kimmel’s suspension tonight, Colbert is the one who connected the dots to a greater plan. Forget what Kimmel said on Monday, Colbert argued, this action was premeditated. How does Colbert know? “Two months ago, when the president was tastefully celebrating my cancellation, he posted, ‘Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go!’”
How could Trump have known, Colbert wondered. “Either Jimmy getting thrown off the air was his plan all along, or he was the one who stole that almanac from Doc Brown’s DeLorean!”
The Late Show host did a good job of calling out some of the story’s forgotten villains, including Disney (an animated Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, wearing a MAGA cap, sings a “Be Our Guest” parody called “Shut Your Trap”) and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the man who suggested affiliates pull Kimmel from the airwaves before Nexstar and Sinclair threatened to do just that.
Carr, who Colbert likened to “an individually wrapped, hard-boiled egg that they sell at the airport,” is a target who deserves more of late night’s ire. Colbert let him have it Thursday night, calling out the egg with his own words from a 2020 tweet.
“From internet memes to late night comedians, political satire helps hold those in power accountable,” Carr posted. “Shutting down this type of political speech, especially at the urging of those targeted or threatened by its message, would represent a serious threat to our freedoms.”
“Oh man,” laughed Colbert. “Do not tell Brendan Carr that Brendan Carr said that or he’s going to get Brendan Carr to cancel Brendan Carr.”
As the original Late-Night Comic Who Lost His Job, Colbert has no trouble pushing back when Carr tells local networks “to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.”
“Well, you know what my community values are, buster?” Colbert asked, shaking a fist for the Jimmy Kimmels of the world. “Freedom of speech.”
