Late-night show hosts including Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and David Letterman have rallied behind Jimmy Kimmel following ABC’s decision to indefinitely suspend his popular late-night show after his comments about the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
In his opening monologue on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert mocked executives at Disney, ABC’s parent company, for caving to threats from Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman, when they pulled Kimmel off the air.
In an excerpt posted on Instagram before broadcast, Colbert also scolded Carr for calling Kimmel’s commentary on the rush to politicize Kirk’s murder an affront to community values. “Well, you know what my community values are, Buster?” Colbert asked. “Freedom of speech.”
“People across the country are shocked by this blatant assault on the freedom of speech,” Colbert added.
Colbert went on to poke fun at Disney executives, saying: “As one source at ABC put it, they were pissing themselves all day” over the threat of Trump’s administration’s retaliation against the network. “On the bright side, that proves Disney is No 1 in streaming,” he joked.
A Rutgers University professor who taught a course on anti-fascism and was blocked from leaving the...
