President Donald Trump has blasted ABC for its decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel back.
About an hour before Kimmel’s Tuesday night show was set to go live, Trump said in a Truth Social post that he could not believe that ABC had given Kimmel his job back.
“The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” he wrote. “Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”
Trump then hinted that the White House could launch a lawsuit against ABC, referencing the $15 million settlement he won from the network after he sued it for defamation.
“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” Trump wrote.
Disney suspended Kimmel’s show on September 17. The show was pulled after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, slammed Kimmel’s comments about the killing of the conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.
The decision to suspend Kimmel caused an uproar, with several figures from Hollywood to late-night show hosts criticizing the Trump administration and accusing it of infringing on free speech rights.
Trump spoke at Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona on Sunday. He previously celebrated Kimmel being pulled off the air.
“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on September 17, taking time to comment on the news during his state visit to the United Kingdom. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.”
On Monday, Disney announced that Kimmel would return to “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after previously suspending ABC’s flagship late-night show following Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the Walt Disney Company said in a statement.
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It added, “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
Disney endured days of criticism from Hollywood to Washington over the decision to suspend Kimmel’s show. Before the announcement of his return, more than 400 artists, including Tom Hanks, Pedro Pascal, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Aniston, and Selena Gomez, signed an open letter supporting Kimmel.
Much of the political criticism has focused on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, who warned Disney “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” while taking issue with Kimmel’s comments.
Carr later applauded Nexstar Media Group, which owns 28 ABC affiliates, after the station owner said it would preempt Kimmel’s show. ABC later suspended Kimmel’s show entirely before Monday’s announcement.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and Trump ally, later said that Carr’s comments sounded like “a mafioso.” Trump has defended Carr and told reporters he disagreed with Cruz’s view of the situation.
Before Trump’s comments, Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Nexstar Media Group, which separately own roughly 25% of all ABC affiliates, each announced that they would continue to air other programming instead of Kimmel’s show.
In its announcement, Nexstar said that viewers could still watch Kimmel via one of Disney’s streaming services.
Separately, Nexstar and Disney have urgent business before the FCC — including Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with Tenga, another local TV operator.
Representatives of Trump and Kimmel did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
