1st Amendment under attack
Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension last week has ignited discussions about free speech, the boundaries of comedy, and the polarised climate in America. Meanwhile, Trump’s influence is blurring the lines between protected expression and partisan efforts to silence opposing voices.
S hould the government censor speech it doesn’t like? Of course not. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest.
Words that I believe. But not my words.
That first paragraph is a quote from now FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. In fact, he posted it on Twitter in 2019 after a Democratic FCC commissioner called for a crackdown on electronic cigarette ads.
So, who is the real Brendan Carr? The one who believes in the First Amendment, as the first paragraph states, or the one who mob-talked ABC this week into suspending Jimmy Kimmel?
Mob-talked. Like the old mobster who used to walk into the neighborhood candy store and tell the owner, “Nice store you have here,” with the clear threat that we can make it not so nice if you don’t do what we want.
Carr told ABC in an interview, “We can do it the easy way, or the hard way,” implying FCC punishment if they didn’t keep their store “clean.”
I have watched the Kimmel shtick from the other night several times. Honestly, the MAGA angle, I did not find funny. But comics not being funny is not against the law, or the Constitution.
At the moment Kimmel told that joke, there were rumors reported that Charlie Kirk’s murderer had beliefs similar to MAGA. As with most police investigations, rumors at the early stages often are wrong.
Comedy is timing, not only in how you tell a joke but when you tell a joke.
The part after that in Kimmel’s monologue, even though the timing of it may have been wrong, was funny. He played a video of Trump being asked a day or two after Kirk was killed, how he was doing, dealing with the murder of his friend.
Trump’s answer: “I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”
The camera shifted back to Kimmel, who then deadpanned: “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction.”
To me, that was funny.
On the day of Kirk’s murder, though, Kimmel posted on Instagram:
“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”
That’s Jimmy Kimmel the human versus Jimmy Kimmel the not-always-funny comedian whose show was suspended.
It’s all important “only” because the First Amendment is first for a reason – it’s one major reason America exists and is admired around the world. Carr, though, not only threatened ABC, he now is threatening others (NBC?) who still have late show hosts on air.
And, Carr is reinforcing Trump’s grievances about the media being against him (by reporting news), and about comics making jokes about him (as they have about every President who preceded him).
Trump is pushing his “narrative” that it is Us vs.Them.
MAGA believers (I’m not sure how else to describe them – they are not conservative Republicans) want the murderer of Kirk to be a man who was acting on orders from “Them,” who I presume includes the Deep State and liberals with money who fund liberal organizations – all of whom apparently met to tell the murderer to shoot Kirk.
It’s ridiculous. That didn’t happen.
This country is not Us and Them. It’s a country that is deeply divided right now and is deeply split by leaders (led by Trump on the MAGA side) who want there to be, like authoritarians have done before him, an Us and a Them – an Us that is good and a Them that is evil.
It’s easier that way to split the country.
It’s simple. “They killed him,” some MAGA bloggers and others are saying. Rather than what is the truth – the 22-year-old pulled the trigger by himself in an act that is horrific, wrong, and a crime that removed a man from his wife and children, for no reason other than the 22-year-old disagreed with him.
Kirk had a right to have and voice his views, just as Jimmy Kimmel has a right and a voice to tell jokes. Bad jokes are protected by the Constitution just as political rhetoric is protected.
And that goes for all of us, or it goes for none of us.
GOING FURTHER
Jimmy Kimmel taken off air over Charlie Kirk comments | SKY NEWS
ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After F.C.C. Pressure | THE NEW YORK TIMES
ABC takes Jimmy Kimmel off air over Charlie Kirk comments | BBC NEWS
What did Jimmy Kimmel say about Charlie Kirk - and how did he respond to being suspended? | SKY NEWS
‘Free speech for me, not for thee’: how Trump’s censorship blitz is splitting the right | THE GUARDIAN
Sources:
▪ This piece was first published in The Screaming Moderate and re-published in Europeans TODAY on 27 September 2025 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
▪ Cover: Dreamstime/Korwen.
