ABC suspended the show Jimmy Kimmel Live indefinitely on Wednesday under pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, setting off a national discussion about whether the president should be able to dictate what Americans see on TV.
And Trump made his threats against free speech even more explicit Thursday, telling reporters that any TV channel that was critical of him should lose its broadcasting license.
Trump was asked on Air Force One about Carr, who had made threats against ABC while speaking with MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson.
“Mr. President, are you going to ask Brendan Carr to weigh in on other late-night hosts that you have asked that should be on the air?” one reporter asked, according to video posted to the White House YouTube channel.
Trump responded that the networks only give him “bad publicity” and were “97% against” him, without citing a source or clarifying what he meant. Trump rambled about how he won so many states in the 2024 presidential election, apparently trying to contrast that with how people talk about him in the media.
And then he praised the FCC chair while saying that people who give him bad publicity should have their broadcasting licenses revoked.
“I mean, they’re getting a license,” said Trump. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy. So we’ll have to see.”
Notice that Trump drops a “maybe” in there because he thinks it gives him enough plausible deniability for major news outlets to hedge on what he’s really saying. But this is the same mob-boss bullshit he always pulls.
The back and forth between Trump and reporters continued on Air Force One, with Trump bragging about how he “beat” ABC News and CBS News by extracting huge sums of money from them. ABC settled with Trump in a defamation lawsuit that was widely seen as a capitulation to the president’s ridiculous claims. And CBS did something similar with a lawsuit over 60 Minutes that was even more frivolous.
One reporter asked who Trump would like to see replace Kimmel and the president said “anyone can replace him” because he was a “wackjob” who “had no talent.” Trump said that Kimmel had worse ratings than Stephen Colbert, the CBS late night host who was the first to get the ax in Trump’s media purge, though Colbert will be on the air until the end of his contract in May.
Then Trump really got into it again, making his fascist goals pretty explicit.
“When you have a network, then you have evening shows, and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do…” Trump said before going on a side tangent about how there hasn’t been a conservative host “in years.”
“But when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that. They’re an arm of the Democrat [sic] Party,” Trump said.
People on TV are, in fact, allowed to criticize the president. It’s kind of why the First Amendment was adopted in the first place. But it’s never been clearer that we’re on a very bad path. And Trump himself has said that NBC late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are next. Meyers joked Thursday night that any videos of him saying mean things about the president were AI before launching into a regular segment making fun of the president.
What comes after that? Judging by what Carr said on Thursday, it’s most likely another ABC show that will get targeted for cancellation.
Notably, the panel on The View didn’t even talk about Kimmel on Thursday, according to People magazine. Because that’s how it works in authoritarian countries. The president doesn’t necessarily need to make a direct threat to shut people up. After enough outspoken folks in the media get purged, many people get the message and go into self-preservation mode.
