Obama Slams Trump Admin’s Kimmel Threats

Former President Barack Obama denounced the Trump administration’s concentrating on of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Reside!’ and warned that its threats to media firms had taken cancel tradition to a “new and harmful stage.”

“After years of complaining about cancel tradition, the present administration has taken it to a brand new and harmful stage by routinely threatening regulatory motion towards media firms until they muzzle or fireplace reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama wrote in a Thursday post on X, which linked a Vox story describing ABC’s determination to yank Kimmel off air as a capitulation to Trump officers.

“Let’s be clear about what simply occurred: Jimmy Kimmel, a outstanding late-night comic, was simply taken off the airwaves as a result of the Trump administration didn’t like what he needed to say — and threatened his employer till they shut him up,” Vox’s Zack Beauchamp wrote.

ABC pulled Kimmel’s present indefinitely on Wednesday within the wake of conservative backlash over feedback the late-night host made about Charlie Kirk’s killing in a Monday monologue. The choice additionally adopted a staggering risk from Trump FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who urged Disney to take motion and advised the company might revoke particular person stations’ licenses as punishment.

Following Carr’s feedback, Nexstar, an organization that additionally has a merger pending FCC approval, stated that dozens of its affiliate stations would cease airing Kimmel because of issues over his Kirk assertion. Shortly after that announcement, ABC stated it will pull Kimmel’s present.

Carr’s threats and ABC’s willingness to bow all the way down to them have sparked severe issues in regards to the administration’s assaults on free speech and its openness to wielding regulatory penalties towards these it disagrees with.

Obama on Thursday additionally criticized The Washington Publish’s firing of opinion columnist Karen Attiah, who stated she was let go after sharing social media posts on gun violence and racial double requirements after Kirk’s killing.

“That is exactly the sort of authorities coercion that the First Modification was designed to forestall — and media firms want to begin standing up fairly than capitulating to it,” Obama wrote.