In Kimmel Suspension, Trump Campaign Against Critics Escalates

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In Kimmel Suspension, Trump Campaign Against Critics Escalates

Jimmy Kimmel is the latest target of an effort to punish political speech following the killing of Charlie Kirk

By Natalie Andrews and Aaron Zitner, WSJ

Sept. 18, 2025 1:33 pm ET

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is putting the weight of the federal government behind a crackdown on political speech it deems objectionable in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

On Wednesday afternoon, the head of the Federal Communications Commission suggested the agency could punish ABC over comments made by comedian Jimmy Kimmel related to Kirk’s killing. By Wednesday evening, Disney, ABC’s parent company, said it was taking Kimmel’s late-night show off the air indefinitely.

Hours later, President Trump said he was labeling antifa—a loose affiliation of far-left activist groups—as “a major terrorist organization.” Earlier this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi raised the prospect of prosecuting people who engage in hate speech. And behind the scenes, senior administration officials are drawing up plans to take action against left-leaning organizations.

Taken together, the moves appear to mark an escalation of Trump’s efforts to target his perceived opponents and critics. The president and his team have discussed investigating liberal philanthropist George Soros and left-leaning foundations under the corrupt-organizations law known as RICO. Trump advisers are also weighing whether to review the tax-exempt status of left-leaning nonprofit groups, according to administration officials.

On Wednesday, more than 100 foundations and groups, including those that have been named by the administration as potential targets, such as the Ford Foundation and Soros’s Open Society Foundations, pushed back, writing in an open letter that “attempts to silence speech, criminalize opposing viewpoints, and misrepresent and limit charitable giving undermine our democracy and harm all Americans.”

Trump’s senior advisers and prominent conservative activists have for days condemned comments celebrating Kirk’s death or other remarks they say are misleading the public about its circumstances, encouraging employers to fire employees that make such remarks on social media or elsewhere.

Kimmel, a frequent critic of the president, said during his show Monday: “The MAGA gang [is] 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.”

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, said Kimmel was playing into a false narrative that the suspect was a “MAGA or Republican-motivated” person, calling the comments “sick.”

Many of Trump’s senior advisers, and the president himself, had close friendships with Kirk, one of the most prominent conservative activists of his generation. They have expressed outrage over the killing and promised to hold people accountable for what they call hate speech and other rhetoric that they say has contributed to political violence against the right. Vice President JD Vance told supporters that “when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out—and, hell, call their employer.”

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, wrote on social media Wednesday that people fired for comments about Kirk’s killing are “not losing their jobs to cancel culture, they’re losing them to Consequence Culture.” He added, “Consequences and accountability are something that Democrats haven’t had to face in a long time.”

Critics, including some Republicans, say the administration is challenging some long-held conservative principles. From the earliest days as a political candidate, Trump argued that conservatives were being censored by the left, and he later railed against the “cancel culture” that he said was costing people their jobs for speaking their minds.

“I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump, a novice candidate, said to applause at the first Republican presidential debate, in 2015.

At the beginning of his second term, Trump signed an executive order banning the government from “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” While in Europe shortly after inauguration, Vance said “free speech, I fear, is in retreat” across Europe, and he also has criticized a U.K. law that allows government officials to deem online content harmful or offensive.

“The @GOP does not believe in free speech. They are censoring you in real time,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wrote on social media Wednesday night after Kimmel’s suspension.

Disney’s decision to suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely came after Carr suggested that regulators could move against broadcast licenses held by ABC-owned stations due to Kimmel’s comments. Owners of some ABC TV stations, including large broadcasters Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, subsequently told the network they were dropping the show.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,” Carr said on a podcast Wednesday hosted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson. Carr argued that Kimmel’s comments were an “intentional effort to mislead the American people.”

In a social-media post celebrating the suspension of Kimmel’s show, Trump appeared to call on NBC to fire its own late-night comedians, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. “Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!” he posted.

Earlier this week, Bondi said the Justice Department could investigate people engaged in hate speech, and she suggested businesses could be prosecuted for refusing to print posters with Kirk’s image on them. She later wrote on social media that she was referring to hate speech that “crosses the line into threats of violence.”

Bondi’s statements drew a rebuke from several conservative lawmakers.

“‘Hate’ speech — as even a concept — is a tool of leftists and tyrants…certainly not conservatives,” Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas) wrote on social media.

The fight over speech spilled into Congress on Wednesday, as the House narrowly defeated a Republican lawmaker’s effort to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) for reposting a video that disparaged Kirk.