Tuesday night, September 23, marked Jimmy Kimmel’s return to the air after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled by ABC last week under pressure from the Trump administration. Kimmel had made a joke about the man alleged to have shot and killed right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, prompting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr to threaten the network, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, with retaliation. Find Kimmel’s complete opening monologue from his return below.
Kimmel took the stage to cheers of “Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!” He began by remarking, “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours, me or the CEO of Tylenol,” and expressed his gratitude to his fellow late-night talk show hosts and the audience for their support. Kimmel made a point to thank conservative pundits and politicians including Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz by name: “Even though I don’t agree with many of those people on most subjects—some of the things they say even make me want to throw up—it takes courage for them to speak up against this administration, and they did and they deserve credit for it.”
Kimmel continued, “I do want to make something clear because it’s important to me as a human, and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.” He also acknowledged CBS’ recent cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. “I’ve had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians and talk show hosts from countries like Russia, countries in the Middle East,” Kimmel remarked. “Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country, and that’s something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who run our show in the cities you live in to take my show off the air. That’s not legal; that’s not American—that’s un-American.”
At one point, Kimmel quoted a 2022 social media post from Brendan Carr during his tenure as FCC commissioner: “Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.” A later segment featured Robert De Niro loosely impersonating the now-FCC chair—a reference to De Niro’s role in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob drama Goodfellas and a recent comment from Cruz comparing Carr to a “mafioso.”
Addressing his current relationship with the network, Kimmel said, “We talked it through, and, at the end, even though they didn’t have to… they welcomed me back on the air. Unfortunately, and, I think, unjustly, this puts them at risk. The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs.” He concluded his monologue by discussing the speech given by Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, during a memorial service organized by Turning Point USA, the conservative organization the late activist co-founded: “On Sunday, Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That’s it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply. It touches many, and, if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, it should be that, and not this.”
Notably, this evening’s episode of Kimmel did not air on all ABC stations nationwide. The TV station groups Sinclair and Nexstar, which together control over 20 percent of the network’s local affiliates, had previously announced that they would pre-empt the show indefinitely on their programming schedules. Nexstar is currently trying to close a $6.2 billion merger with a rival TV company that will require FCC approval.
Sarah McLachlan was the musical guest on Kimmel tonight. She performed a solo piano rendition of the title track from the new album Better Broken. McLachlan recently canceled her scheduled performance at the premiere event for Disney+’s Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery documentary, which took place on Sunday, September 21, “in support of free speech.” Watch her sing “Better Broken” below.
