Jimmy Kimmel has acquired an unexpected defender amid his feud with Donald Trump: Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
The MAGA Republican, who famously clashed with the president during the 2016 primaries before supporting him, bashed the administration’s attempts to pressure Disney and ABC News into firing Kimmel.
“It is not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News of the Federal Communication Commission’s move to force ABC to file for license renewals.
This isn’t the first time Cruz has jumped to Kimmel’s defense. Last fall, when Carr made similar threats against Disney and ABC, the Texas senator said the FCC chair had behaved like “a mafioso.”
“That’s right out of Goodfellas,” he added at the time.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr demanded ABC file for license renewals this week after First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump called for the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host to be fired over a joke he made during an alternative “roast” of the president ahead of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which did not invite a comedian to roast the president.
Kimmel joked during his parody roast that Melania Trump had a “glow like an expectant widow.” In the aftermath of the dinner, which was cancelled after an armed gunman attempted to rush the ballroom, the first couple accused Kimmel of encouraging violence against the president — and demanded he be taken off the air. It was “obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together,” Kimmel later clarified.
The Trump administration now appears to be trying to punish Disney for keeping Kimmel on the air. “There’s lots of options. You have a license. The licenses come to you every so often. You can accelerate when a license comes to you and say, hey, we have significant concerns with the value of conducting your operations,” Carr told Katie Miller — wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — on her podcast. Carr added that if the commission determined ABC was not behaving “in the public interest” (a likely outcome for an ideologically motivated probe directed by the president) the FCC could move forward with punitive action.
It isn’t the first time Carr has attempted to have Kimmel kicked off of the air. Last year, the chairman pressured Kimmel’s corporate parents to pull him from the network or face a review of their license after the host blasted Republicans’ politicized reaction to the assasination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk.
In response to this latest attempted censorship, Disney stated that it has “a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming.”
The company added that they are confident their record “demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels.”
