In the wake of the shocking news that Jimmy Kimmel was actually pulled from the air — “indefinitely” suspended over his remarks about Charlie Kirk — we’ve noticed there are still a lot of people who have no idea what he even said.
A lot of commenters seem to think he made a joke about the murder, or was celebrating it in some way. That assumption would make sense given what’s being done to him and his staff, right? But that’s not what happened.
First off, on the day the news broke, this was what Kimmel posted on Instagram:
In fact, he also said on his show the day after the killing:
“Like the rest of the country we are trying to wrap our heads around the senseless murder of popular podcaster and conservative activist Charlie Kirk yesterday. His death has amplified our anger, our differences. I’ve seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of political spectrum. Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”
But that wasn’t the comment that caused all the controversy.
Related: Hollywood Reacts To Kimmel Being Suspended
That was a couple days later. He still never badmouthed Kirk nor celebrated his death. What he did was point out how some — led by Donald Trump — seemed to be trying to exploit the murder to attack their political opponents, rather than waiting on any investigation to take place. He said:
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang 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.”
He then showed a clip of Trump being asked about the death of his “friend Charlie Kirk” — and the POTUS immediately using the opportunity to instead brag about his new White House ballroom, how much it was going to cost, how it was “gonna be a beauty.” Kimmel commented:
“There’s something wrong with him, there really is. Who thinks like that?”
The point was not to make light of Charlie Kirk’s death in the slightest. If anything he was jabbing Trump for making light of the murder. In Kimmel’s estimation, Trump did not seem to actually care about Kirk — just whatever political gains he could get by painting it as the result of left-wing incitement of violence.
So why the controversy?
Well, Trump’s FCC head Brendan Carr said Kimmel’s comments were a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people” and an attempt to “play into a narrative that this was somehow a MAGA- or Republican-motivated person.”
It is, of course, worth noting that Trump said back in July “Kimmel is next” after Stephen Colbert was also canceled under suspicious circumstances.
Do YOU think what Jimmy Kimmel said was inflammatory? Was he trying “to lie to the American people”? Was this the type of thing the FCC usually acts on? Exceptions to free speech rights, like hate speech or the incitement of violence?
Or was Project 2025 co-author Carr just following through with the plan? Is this actually another example of what Kimmel was getting at — Trump and his team exploiting Charlie Kirk’s death to go after their political targets?
[Image via Jimmy Kimmel Live/Charlie Kirk/YouTube.]
