XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.politics.republicans, alt.politics.trump   
   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   Jimmy Kimmel will be back on ABC tonight — but not in every market.   
      
   With Sinclair refusing to air Kimmel’s show on its ABC-affiliated   
   stations, and Nexstar continuing to preempt the late-night show, this free   
   speech tug-of-war is far from over.   
      
   And as CNN’s Jake Tapper told Seth Meyers on Monday night, “it doesn’t   
   end” with Kimmel.   
      
   MAGA media commentators are raging against ABC’s parent Disney, with some   
   influential pundits publicly pressing the Trump administration to take   
   action against the company, calling to mind FCC chair Brendan Carr’s “We   
   can do this the easy way or the hard way” line from last week.   
      
   Any such action would stretch well beyond the usual bounds of government   
   regulation, but President Trump has been crossing those lines ever since   
   returning to the Oval Office, as Disney CEO Bob Iger well knows.   
      
   That’s why I am keeping a close eye on the simmering MAGA anger about ABC   
   as Kimmel returns to the airwaves. The anger is palpable on sites like X,   
   where Fox News contributor and The Federalist senior editor Mollie   
   Hemingway told her fans last night that “DISNEY LOATHES YOU.”   
      
   Jimmy Kimmel will be back on ABC tonight — but not in every market.   
      
   With Sinclair refusing to air Kimmel’s show on its ABC-affiliated   
   stations, and Nexstar continuing to preempt the late-night show, this free   
   speech tug-of-war is far from over.   
      
   And as CNN’s Jake Tapper told Seth Meyers on Monday night, “it doesn’t   
   end” with Kimmel.   
      
   MAGA media commentators are raging against ABC’s parent Disney, with some   
   influential pundits publicly pressing the Trump administration to take   
   action against the company, calling to mind FCC chair Brendan Carr’s “We   
   can do this the easy way or the hard way” line from last week.   
      
   Any such action would stretch well beyond the usual bounds of government   
   regulation, but President Trump has been crossing those lines ever since   
   returning to the Oval Office, as Disney CEO Bob Iger well knows.   
      
   That’s why I am keeping a close eye on the simmering MAGA anger about ABC   
   as Kimmel returns to the airwaves. The anger is palpable on sites like X,   
   where Fox News contributor and The Federalist senior editor Mollie   
   Hemingway told her fans last night that “DISNEY LOATHES YOU.”   
      
   Hemingway’s posts showed how pro-Trump media figures have adopted a very   
   different interpretation of Kimmel’s September 15 monologue than other   
   viewers. Kimmel’s “malicious lie” was “designed to protect left-wing   
   violence and further harm Americans and our values,” Hemingway wrote.   
      
   Kimmel actually said the MAGA movement was trying to score political   
   points by trying to prove that the suspect accused of killing Charlie Kirk   
   was not a Trump supporter. Then the host ridiculed one of Trump’s comments   
   in the wake of Kirk’s murder.   
      
   Conservative media watchdogs clipped the moment from ABC’s air and   
   publicized it, leading Carr to publicly condemn Kimmel and invoke the   
   FCC’s power over local station licenses. We all know what happened next.   
   ABC’s decision to sideline Kimmel was a momentary triumph for the right-   
   wing activists who want to win cultural as well as political victories   
   during Trump’s term.   
      
   Kimmel’s return is thus a rebuke to those same activists — while also, in   
   the words of PEN America, a “vindication for free speech.”   
      
   MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson, who egged on Carr last week, wrote on X that   
   Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization “views Jimmy Kimmel’s false claims   
   about Charlie Kirk’s assassin as an open and vicious attack on the   
   organization and its activists.”   
      
   Disney’s not done with politics   
   Shortly after ABC announced Kimmel’s comeback, OutKick founder and Trump   
   ally Clay Travis said on Fox that the government should flex its muscles   
   to Disney.   
      
   Noting ESPN’s pending deal with the NFL, Travis said, “I think the Trump   
   administration needs to look aggressively at that potential acquisition of   
   the NFL Network and say, ‘Wait a minute, is Disney/ABC really trying to   
   speak to all of America? If they won’t do it on a late-night show, will   
   they do it with sports? I think those are real questions that deserve to   
   be asked.”   
      
   The NFL deal requires the Trump DOJ’s sign-off, but that’s supposed to be   
   an antitrust matter, not a review of whether ABC is “trying to speak to   
   all of America.”   
      
   However, for pro-Trump influencers who have resented the liberal bent of   
   late-night TV for years, and despised Kimmel for just as long, the use of   
   government power to punish perceived enemies is not something to be   
   condemned; it’s something to be exploited.   
      
   Ryan Faughnder of the Los Angeles Times said it best this morning: “Disney   
   wanted to be done with politics. But politics wasn’t done with Disney. It   
   never is.”   
      
   ‘I don’t think it ends with Kimmel’   
   That’s what Jake Tapper said during a visit to “Late Night with Seth   
   Meyers” Monday night.   
      
   Tapper called last week’s domino effect “the most direct infringement by   
   the government on free speech that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”   
      
   “We’ll see what happens when they come for Comcast,” NBC’s parent, “and   
   we’ll see what happens when they come for Warner Bros. Discovery,” CNN’s   
   parent, Tapper said to Meyers. “Maybe you and I will be drawing comic   
   books.”   
      
   Nexstar will ‘monitor’ the show   
   Nexstar was the first station group to come out publicly against Kimmel   
   last Wednesday. Nexstar is also the best example of a media company that   
   feels compelled to curry favor with Trump right now, as it needs the FCC   
   to approve its pending merger with Tegna.   
      
   Where are ABC stations owned by Sinclair and Nexstar?   
   Sinclair and Nexstar own at least 64 ABC affiliates in nearly 30 states.   
   Many of the stations operate in small or mid-sized television markets.   
      
   So will Nexstar air Kimmel’s return on Tuesday night? The company   
   announced this morning that it will continue to preempt the late-night   
   talk show, “pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering   
   an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we   
   serve.”   
      
   Some of Nexstar’s local newsrooms struggled to figure out how to cover   
   ABC’s announcement yesterday, since they didn’t know if their own stations   
   were going to air the show or not.   
      
   More broadly, I view this moment as yet another example of the slow   
   unspooling of broadcast TV, which is becoming less and less “broad,” and   
   another example of the red-blue divide, which is fracturing seemingly   
   everything, even TV schedules.   
      
   This story has been updated to include Nexstar’s decision and statement.   
      
   https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/23/media/kimmel-abc-fcc-trump-disney-sinclair-   
   nexstar   
      
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