After a two-and-a-half-month summer break, Jimmy Kimmel is back tonight to start the 24th season of Jimmy Kimmel Live! But no matter what happens, he will be hard-pressed to top Season 23.
How eventful was it? When the history of the second administration of Donald J. Trump is written, overflowing with incident and consequence, a host of a late-night television show will be among the most crucial players in the saga.
Kimmel’s role looms that large because at a time when financial institutions, tech-world giants, high-profile national law firms, and many of the most storied universities in the country went limp and bowed to bluster and bullying, this late-night host did not buckle, did not break, and did not bow.
That doesn’t make Jimmy Kimmel the American equivalent of the guy who stood in front of an advancing tank in Tiananmen Square. (A comparison he would shrink from and ridicule.)
But its significance in the larger context of concerted administration efforts to undermine the First Amendment in the cause of preventing a president from being made fun of can’t be overstated.
The last season of Jimmy Kimmel Live! was unlike anything any previous late-night comic/host ever experienced. The only vaguely approximate comparison would be Edward R. Murrow staring down the campaign of intimidation Sen. Joseph McCarthy unleashed in the 1950s.
Like Kimmel, Murrow had somewhat shaky network backing and pressed on anyway, but McCarthy wasn’t a president, and he did not have the power to order a lackey of an FCC chairman to threaten his network’s broadcast licenses or urge groups of network station owners to pull his show from the air.
Brendan Carr did that for Trump, most memorably making a threat to ABC and its affiliates that implied serious repercussions if Kimmel was not punished:
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Kimmel faced all that beginning almost exactly a year ago in the wake of comments he made after the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Kimmel did not celebrate the killing in the least; he merely suggested MAGA-world was working overtime to dodge any implication the killer might be a like-minded activist.
He wasn’t. But Kimmel’s suggestion led to an organized move from both Carr and Trump-associated commentators to force him off the air, a move that could easily be traced back to the host’s ongoing and relentless comic skewering of the president. Since the start of his first administration, Trump has continually attacked and disparaged Kimmel, most memorably during Kimmel’s hosting of the 2024 Oscar telecast, which Kimmel turned into a devastating one-liner:
“I’m surprised you’re still up. Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Disney, ABC’s owner, had already capitulated in a Trump suit, agreeing to a $16 million settlement. It reacted to Carr’s pressure campaign by suspending Kimmel “indefinitely,” an act that produced more fallout than any other event in late-night television history.
Disney was widely accused of caving to an authoritarian government—and was pilloried for it.
Kimmel got support everywhere, from a petition signed by more than 400 top Hollywood stars to bipartisan defense from wide swaths of Congress, including unlikely senatorial voices like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. More than 100 former ABC journalists spoke out; all his late-night competitors did bits supporting him; South Park rushed out a special episode that mocked Carr, suggesting he had a brain disease that might “affect his freedom of speech.”
The public also rose up, advocating boycotts of Disney movies and theme parks; and subscribers to Disney streaming services cancelled their accounts.
When Kimmel returned, he drew his biggest ratings ever—8.6 million viewers—with his monologue that night racking up an additional 20-plus millon views on YouTube alone.
He won a Peabody Award—for “embracing the responsibility of comedy to reveal truths amid political volatility.”
Jimmy Kimmel, folk hero? The central figure in the most consequential season in late-night television history? A guy who barely survived his early years, who competed for a long time deep in the shadow of Letterman, Leno, Conan, and The Daily Show?
Yes, that guy: not only still standing, but standing out—not flinching—in the face of professional and personal threats.
This momentous late-night season included a second round of official assault after a joke in a faux roast tied to the first White House Correspondents’ Dinner spurred renewed calls for a Kimmel firing from both members of the Trump couple. The allegedly offensive comments—that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow”—had come two days before the violence at the Washington event.
No firing ensued; nor even a second suspension. Folk heroes are tougher to suspend. Kimmel suddenly had something even bigger than the Disney Co. on his side: the entire weight of historical support for the fundamental American value of free speech.
That’s a heavy weight, though not enough to subdue the movement to shut Jimmy and his network up. Carr has continued to direct his fire at Disney/ABC properties, challenging the broadcast licenses of ABC-owned stations; Disney responded by filing suit, accusing Carr of retaliating against Kimmel and another frequent Trump target, the opinionated women of The View.
With the ousting of one friendly rival, Stephen Colbert, another longstanding Trump target, Kimmel is now expected to be the most-watched traditional late-night host on TV, though no one is going to use the title “King of Late Night”—not in this political environment.
That means everything Kimmel does and says will command unusually intense attention and comment.
Kimmel and his staff are hyper-aware that they’re being watched, closely, and not only by friendly viewers.
Another season of consequence begins tonight. Strap in.
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