‘America Is a Less Free Place’: Brian Stelter Aghast at ABC’s ‘Chilling’ Decision to Suspend ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

BURNETT: “ — truly dropped as, I think, a shock to anybody who heard it, even if they knew that Brendan Carr, the pro-Trump chief of the FCC, had made the comments he made on that podcast. I don’t think there’s anybody who literally thought within hours Jimmy Kimmel would be gone.”

STELTER: “Right, absolutely right. In fact, this was very sudden this afternoon after Carr spoke out on that far-right podcast. Then, some stations that are owned by other companies but affiliated with ABC started to complain to ABC. We know one of them, Nexstar, which has about two dozen stations with the ABC logo and all the ABC programming. Nexstar publicly announced that they were going to drop Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Within a matter of minutes, we heard from Disney that the show was being pulled altogether. That suggests to me that other station owners were probably also getting scared. Other station owners were probably also coming up with backup plans not to air Kimmel’s show. But even though we’re talking about comedy, this is so serious, Erin. America is a less free place if late-night comedians cannot do and say what they want. Of course, they can be tuned out. People can change the channel. That’s how we vote. That’s how we have our say in America. But this really does have a chilling effect across the American media. And it’s not just me saying, we’ve heard from the group FIRE in the past few minutes, the free speech group FIRE saying, quote, the government pressured ABC and ABC caved. Quote: We cannot be a country where late-night talk show hosts serve at the pleasure of the president. But until institutions grow a backbone and learn to resist government pressure, that is the country we are. And just one more note, Erin. I’ve heard from Brendan Carr in the past few minutes. He’s very pleased about Nexstar deciding to preempt the show. He has not officially reacted to ABC’s decision yet, but when I told him about ABC’s decision to go ahead, and basically, this is a cancellation unless the show ever comes back —“