BURSTFederal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr on Wednesday defended ABC's decision to pull late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air over the host's jokes about the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
During an appearance on Fox News's "Hannity," Carr said Kimmel and other left-leaning comics are "facing the consequences" of catering to what he called a "very narrow audience."
"There's more work to go," he told host Sean Hannity. "But I'm very glad to see that America's broadcasters are standing up for the interests of their community."
Kimmel's suspension came two days after he said on air that Republicans were trying to score “political points” off Kirk’s death and joked that President Trump was mourning the Turning Point USA co-founder's death “like a 4-year-old mourns the death of a goldfish.”
The comedian's comments were hit with swift backlash from conservative media figures and led Nexstar Media Group, which owns The Hill and is the largest provider of local news in the country, to announce its affiliated ABC stations would no longer carry Kimmel's show moving forward.
"Broadcast TV stations have always been required by their licenses to operate in the public interest—that includes serving the needs of their local communities," Carr wrote in a social media post early Thursday morning. "And broadcasters have long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities’ values."
Kimmel has long been a target of Trump's ire, and the president celebrated his suspension in a Truth Social post late Wednesday, congratulating ABC for doing what he said "needed to be done."
The move comes just months after Paramount, the parent company of CBS, announced plans to end "The Late Show," hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert, next May. The president praised the company, saying he loved that "Colbert got fired" and suggested that Kimmel would be next.
Carr later mocked those that criticized CBS's decision to end the show.
“The partisan left’s ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is quite revealing,” Carr wrote on X in July. “They’re acting like they’re losing a loyal [Democratic National Committee] spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws of economics.”
Kimmel's ousting comes as the Trump administration has turned up the heat on broadcasters and mainstream media in recent months.