Jimmy Kimmel could have saved his job with a simple apology for his tone—and he still could. Instead, he seems determined to continue to mix the murder and the MAGA in his monologues.
The Hollywood trades are reporting that many people, from Disney corporate to ABC affiliates around the country, were begging Jimmy to apologize, as viewership and advertising were plummeting, and he just wouldn’t listen. We strongly believe that Disney CEO Bob Iger and Disney were concerned about real, lasting damage to the Disney brand, regardless of any executives’ personal political positions.
President Trump’s threats to suspend the licenses of any broadcasters who allow criticism of his administration, along with his meritless multibillion-dollar lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, are an ominous cloud over freedom of expression and democracy. But the latest programming move by Disney should not just be seen as cowardly submission to an autocrat’s abuse of authority.
Disney is coming under fire from critics on both sides of the aisle, with critics on the left outraged that they pulled their face of light-night TV off the air “indefinitely,” and critics on the right are outraged that Kimmel mocked Trump’s mourning of Charlie Kirk’s killing while seemingly mischaracterizing the politics of the alleged assassin. Funerals are not funny and responsible broadcasters always separate murder from mirth.
Amidst a storm of outrage from both sides, we strongly believe that Iger is navigating a wise middle course, even if he isn’t getting much credit for it. The master builder of the brand, Walt Disney himself, would have done the same in a heartbeat.
The romanticization of TV’s golden days is uninformed. Disney himself even went so far as to get sensitive film scripts and TV shows reviewed by the notorious FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. Do you think Iger is vetting Avengers scripts with Kash Patel? In fact, Iger has gone toe-to-toe against unwarranted government intrusion, standing by former GOP Governor Chris Christie as an ABC News commentator when he was being viciously attacked by Trump.
Critics are waxing nostalgic for the edgy and outrageous comments of social critic humorists such as Dick Gregory, Mort Sahl, George Carlin, and Don Imus, forgetting that none of those figures were ever the host of a broadcast network TV show. There were other outlets for them then and thousands more platforms for such free expression today. Guaranteed First Amendment legal rights in the town square are different from a private enterprise exercising editorial judgment on taste, respect and morality.
Iger’s choice to pull Kimmel off air was not a cowardly surrender to bullying by Trump or any kind of misguided, preemptive appeasement, contrary to what misguided scolds on the left are alleging. Sadly, misguided critics such as Kara Swisher are even lampooning Iger as a “quisling,” making an equivalence between the revered CEO of Disney and one of the despicable enablers of Hitler during World War II. And it’s similarly wrong to equate this with Shari Redstone’s cowardly concessions at Paramount.
Rather, this is merely one more reflection of how Iger has long sought to position Disney as a family-friendly, classic Americana brand with appeal across all sides while eschewing blatantly divisive programming.
That ethos has long guided Iger’s programming and content decisions, it’s really nothing to do with Trump. In fact, over a decade ago, when Sony was embroiled in controversy over a film depicting the fictional assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iger confided in me that he would have never “greenlighted” such inflammatory and offensive content, promoting murder as humor. Hewould never put Disney in such a position.
Just as Iger was not a Kim Jong Un apologist then, he is no Trump apologist now, and his choice to bench Kimmel is no concession to Trump but merely a reflection of his long-held vision for Disney’s brand. In fact, Iger candidly admitted that he pulled the plug on a prospective acquisition of Twitter a decade ago because he did not want Disney drawn into blatant political warfare.
This should always have been solely a private business enterprise call, but the current climate has let it get blurred by reckless bullying from Trump Administration officials, gleefully looking for political vengeance against a harsh critic. In fact, Congressional officials are calling for the resignation of the FCC chair Brendan Carr for threatening to block the planned $6.2 billion merger between mega-ABC-affiliate Nextar (32 stations) and rival station operator Tegna. In fact, these threatening comments from the brash populist Carr was likely detrimental to his own self-professed goal of getting Kimmel off the air. If anything, Iger would have made the decision to pull Kimmel even faster without Carr wading in and giving it the appearance of a political drug deal.
As huge fans of Jimmy Kimmel’s humor and political edge, citing examples almost weekly in classes and other forums, we acknowledge at the same time that what he said was wrong and insensitive. There is no dispute on that, even from Kimmel’s strongest defenders.
We haven’t hesitated to criticize Trump for genuine missteps and excesses, but Kimmel’s mockery of Trump’s mourning process — “this is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish” — is indefensible amidst Trump’s mourning of a genuine long-time ally, gunned down in broad daylight at the tender age of 31. Similarly, Kimmel’s suggestion that “the MAGA gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them” doesn’t square with the facts which are known at this point. Regardless, these comments are blatantly insensitive as political violence should never be tolerated or exploited as comedic entertainment, no matter who perpetrated it.
Given Kimmel’s own self-inflicted errors, there should be no doubt that at a minimum, he needs to apologize and demonstrate genuine remorse. This would present a pathway for him to return to the air, perhaps as soon as the next few days. Nobody deserves to be “canceled” and with hard lessons learned, second chances should be in order. But if Kimmel refuses to show contrition, then perhaps broadcast TV is no longer the right platform for him and he can become one of the 20,000 Substack authors writing for each other. It is unfortunate that, so far, he has refused that opportunity to restore his position and his bold brilliant voice.
Conversely, there should be no doubt that if Trump persists in using Kirk’s murder to justify retaliation against political rivals, the consequences for our country are dangerous.
Iger has been a fearless, equal opportunity offender in defending Disney’s corporate character, whether from intrusions by the left or by the right. He was criticized harshly from many on the political right when in 2018, he cancelled Rosanne, then ABC’s #1 show, when its star imploded with a cruel racial tirade about President Obama’s former top advisor, Valerie Jarrett.
Iger saw no humor consistent with Disney’s brand in that episode. Barr’s bigoted character on and offscreen was far from the social satire and self-mocking of Archie Bunker of the 1960s, nor was it the breakthrough drama preaching racial tolerance from the film In the Heat of the Night.
Similarly, Iger was the very first CEO to stand behind Merck CEO Ken Frazier, who resigned from President Trump’s business advisory council when Trump failed to unequivocally condemn racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to the murder of a peaceful young woman protester.
When Ron DeSantis foolishly attacked Disney and threatened to revoke its special tax-exempt status, effectively trying to frighten the entertainment giant into silence, Iger drew parallels with those CEOs who were intimidated into silence over human rights abuses during World War II, writing to his shareholders, “Those that stood in silence, in some ways, still carry the stain of indifference. So as long as I’m on the job, I’m going to continue to be guided by a sense of decency and respect.”
Just as some voices on the political right howled at Iger’s careful navigation of the Disney brand in earlier times, the political left should similarly respect Disney’s values now. Iger is threading the needle by safeguarding Disney’s brand as one that will continue to be guided by decency and respect, no matter how overheated political rhetoric becomes at times—on both sides.
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