ABC is dropping late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments he made about the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk.
Nexstar Media Group Inc. said Wednesday that, starting Wednesday night, the company’s television stations will stop airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for the “foreseeable future.”
“Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets,” the company said in a statement.
Trump encouraged NBC to cancel the rest of the existing late-night lineup.
“Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!! President DJT”
On Monday, Kimmel opened the show with a monologue that compared Trump’s mourning of Kirk to “the way a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
“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 in his monologue.
An assassin shot and killed Kirk, a close ally of Trump, during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Trump said his son, Don, told him, “He’s sort of like a son to you.” Vice President J.D. Vance took Kirk’s casket on Air Force Two.
Andrew Alford, president of Nexstar’s broadcasting division, said canceling Kimmel’s show was a “difficult decision.”
“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” he said in a statement. “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.”
