Late Night Last Week: Reactions to the Jimmy Kimmel Suspension

Late Night Last Week: Hosts Respond to Jimmy Kimmel Suspension

Each week, Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, we cover how late night hosts responded to the killing of Charlie Kirk and political violence in America. We also recap how each show did at the 2025 Emmy Awards.

On September 15, John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, made his debut on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! The pair were fresh off a night at the Emmys, where Jimmy Kimmel was seen in the audience celebrating Oliver and his team’s wins. By the end of the week, Oliver was delivering a monologue following Kimmel’s indefinite suspension, a move he and basically all discerning (and even not so discerning) observers credit to pressure from the FCC.

The whole situation gets even more eerie. At the Emmys, Last Week Tonight writer Daniel O’Brien began his acceptance speech by mentioning the other nominees. “We are honored to share [this category] with other writers of late-night political comedy while that is still a type of show that’s allowed to exist,” he said, an apparent reference to the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and President Trump’s obsession with getting late night hosts off the air.

After O’Brien’s remark, the camera cut directly to an applauding Kimmel and Molly McNearney, the show’s co-head writer, executive producer, and Kimmel’s spouse.

“It’s not just a coincidence,” Oliver said on his September 21 broadcast. “Everyone knew the administration had it in for Kimmel.”

Let’s rewind.

On September 17, ABC suspended Kimmel following remarks the host made during his Monday monologue on the man who allegedly killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Here’s the full quote: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

The remarks were soon condemned by many on the American right, who said Kimmel was implying that the man who killed Kirk was a MAGA supporter. On Wednesday, Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, appeared on a podcast and suggested that Kimmel should be punished for his remarks. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said.

Then, owners of ABC affiliate stations, the corporations Sinclair and Nexstar, condemned Kimmel and announced that they would be pulling the show from the air. And with that, Disney-owned ABC suspended Kimmel and his program. Quickly, the media, politicians, and Kimmel’s fellow late-night hosts jumped in to defend him, citing the move as politically motivated and labeling it government censorship.

As is often the case, the best place to get the rundown on the situation is Last Week Tonight. Oliver runs down the facts of the matter and its dangerous implications, chief among them the fact that Sinclair and Nexstar are both reportedly exploring merger options. Any moves would require the approval of the FCC.

While the companies have said they acted independently, Oliver noted that Carr himself did not shy away from connecting the dots. He took to social media to celebrate the news, further lending credence to the claim that the government had pressured the company to make the decision. Even Senator Ted Cruz—who, people may forget, once beat Kimmel in a one-on-one basketball game—likened Carr to a “mafioso.”

“He’s right. He’s just right,” Oliver said.

“And I’ll say this:

I still don’t like that man, Ted Cruz,
But in this unique clip of news,
On this one thing, I must admit,
He’s not completely full of shit.”

On The Daily Show, the shifts in late night were so great it brought about a changing of days: Thursday became Monday, as Jon Stewart took over hosting duties on September 18 to react to the Kimmel news.

“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” Stewart declared as the audience began to laugh. “What are you doing? Shut up!” Stewart softly yelled to his audience, hoping the mic would not pick it up. “Don’t fucking blow this for us.”

Stewart then launched into an administration-compliant broadcast, which in turn became a defense of Kimmel. As he and the Daily Show team do better than anyone, they drew from the archive, showing clips of right-wing actors saying all the things that they now seek to punish their political enemies for doing.

“Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional-republic governance,” Stewart said. “Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it’s great.”

From there, Stewart then cut to his crew of correspondents, who delivered a similarly compliant performance, together declaring: “Americans are free to express any opinion we want. To suggest otherwise is laughable. Ha, ha, ha. We are a nation of diverse perspectives. And we are not afraid to be different.”

Back to HBO. Over on Real Time, Bill Maher came to the defense of his friend Kimmel. He noted another eerie coincidence: it was 24 years to the day that Maher, then hosting Politically Incorrect, himself made comments after the 9/11 attacks that eventually led to his cancellation by ABC. The show that eventually took over the time slot? Jimmy Kimmel Live!

“Jimmy, pal, I am with you, I support you, and on the bright side, you don’t have to pretend anymore that you like Disneyland,” Maher said. “That was always a great part of it for me when I got my ass canned over there.”

Kimmel’s network compatriots similarly came to his defense. On CBS, Colbert—himself a victim of the ongoing attacks on late night— began his September 18th monologue by declaring, “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.” He went on to call the move “blatant censorship.”

Following Kimmel’s suspension, President Trump took a victory lap, writing on social media, “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

Both Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers came out in defense of Kimmel. The Tonight Show host said, “Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC, after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking WTF.” He praised Kimmel and expressed hope for his return.

Meyers, whose show, like Colbert’s, is more political in nature, dedicated more time to Kimmel’s suspension in his “A Closer Look” segment, defending his friend and detailing the ongoing “crackdown on free speech” in the country.

“I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech,” Meyers said. “And we’re going to keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it—with enthusiasm and integrity.”

Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.

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