Here’s How Late-Night Hosts Reacted to ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ Being Pulled from ABC

Late-night hosts are continuing to speak out in support of Jimmy Kimmel after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was pulled from ABC.

On Wednesday, Sept. 17, ABC and Nexstar confirmed to PEOPLE that the show would be pulled “indefinitely.” The news came after Kimmel’s recent remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk during the Sept. 15 episode of his show.

During the Monday broadcast, the comedian, 57, spoke about Kirk, a right-wing political commentator who was shot and killed while speaking at a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. He was 31 years old.

“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,” Kimmel began. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

“On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this,” he continued.

A clip was then shown of Trump, 79, taking questions from reporters after the shooting, one of which offered their condolences for the death of the president’s “friend” Kirk.

When asked how he was holding up, Trump replied, “I think very good, and by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.”

Trump added that the ballroom would “be a beauty.” The cameras then cut back to Kimmel who said,. “Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief, construction.”

On Sept. 17, Nexstar Media, which is the largest local broadcast and digital media company in the U.S., said that it “strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.”

Nexstar recently announced plans to acquire rival broadcast company Tegna for $6.2 billion, a massive deal that would further consolidate the local television landscape and put Nexstar in 80% of America’s TV-owning households, according to a press release. The acquisition will require final approval from the Trump-controlled Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

FCC Chair Brendan Carr quickly praised Nexstar on Wednesday for putting pressure on ABC to remove Kimmel, writing on X that “it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.”

Kimmel had previously offered his condolences to Kirk’s family on Instagram.

“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” he wrote on Sept. 10. “On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Among those reacting to the news of Kimmel’s show being pulled were The Daily Show host Jon Stewart. “You may call it free speech in jolly old England, but in America, we have a little thing called the first amendment, and let me tell you how it works,” Stewart, 62, began on the Sept. 18 episode of The Daily Show, before explaining what a “talent-o-meter” is. Stewart said it was a device on the president’s desk that lets him know when a performer’s TQ — “talent quotient, measured mostly by niceness to the president” — goes below a certain level.

“At which point, the FCC must be notified to threaten the acquisition prospects for billion-dollar mergers of network affiliates,” Stewart explained. “These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to even larger mega corporation that controls the flow of state-approved content. Or the FCC can just choose to threaten those licenses directly. It’s basic science.”

The comedian and the show’s writers reimagined the entire episode to show what they believe a “government-approved” Daily Show would be like.

Seth Meyers dedicated the Sept. 18 Late Night “A Closer Look” segment to Trump’s relationship with the media and free speech amid Kimmel’s hiatus.

“His administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech — and completely unrelated, I just want to say, before we get started here, that I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump,” Meyers, 51, said as the audience laughed. “I’ve always believed he was a visionary, innovator, a great president, and an even better golfer. And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”

Later, Meyers took a more serious tone, telling the audience, “It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show every night. I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we’re gonna keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it: with enthusiasm and integrity.”

Meyers called this a “big moment in our democracy,” adding, “We must all stand up for the principles of free expression. There’s a reason free speech is in the very first amendment.”

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Stephen Colbert called Jimmy Kimmel Live!‘s indefinite removal from ABC’s lineup a form of “blatant censorship” at the taping of his Sept. 18 Late Show.

“I’ll say this for my network. They wouldn’t have done this. Now regardless of what you think, that has already been done and how that looks, this is weak. This is blatant censorship,” Colbert said during a Q&A before the taping of his Thursday show, per the New York Post.

“With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch,” Colbert said, adding per CNBC, “Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100% percent.”

The news surrounding Kimmel’s show comes exactly two months after Colbert, 61, announced that his show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was canceled by CBS. The network’s decision came days after Colbert criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount, during his July 14 episode for its July 3 $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump. 

Meanwhile, David Letterman shared during an appearance at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York City on Thursday that he has been in contact with Kimmel since the news broke.

“This is misery,” the Late Show with David Letterman alum, 78, said, according to Variety. “I feel bad about this. We see where this is all going, correct? It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous. And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”

“The institution of the President of the United States ought to be bigger than a guy doing a talk show,” he added, noting that the removal “was predicted by our president right after Stephen Colbert got walked off, so you’re telling me this isn’t premeditated at some level?”

Letterman then revealed that Kimmel texted him on Thursday morning. “He’s up in bed, taking nourishment. He’s going to be fine,” he said, as the audience laughed.

Also on Thursday evening, Jimmy Fallon addressed the news on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

“Big story is that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking WTF,” the host, 51, began. “This morning, I woke up to 100 text messages from my dad saying, ‘I’m sorry they canceled your show.’ Hang on, that’s not me. That’s Jimmy Kimmel,” he said, as audiences laughed.

Fallon then shifted his tone. “But to be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does. But I I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny, and loving guy, and I hope he comes back,” he said, being met with applause.

“Yeah, a lot of people are worried that we won’t keep saying what we want to say or that we’ll be censored, but I’m gonna cover the president’s trip to the U.K. just like I normally would. Here we go,” he said.

“Well, guys, President Trump just wrapped up his three day trip to the U.K.,” the segment began, before a humorous narration took over for Fallon, inserting “and he looked incredibly handsome, as always, his tie was exactly the right way. And his face looked like a color that exists in nature. And his hair looked better than Conrad’s from The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

Fallon took over again, saying “During the trip, protestors managed to project images onto the side of Windsor Castle of Trump standing next to…” he trailed off, before the narrator inserted “his good friend Jeff Goldblum,” instead of the photos of Trump alongside Jeffrey Epstein that were projected onto the castle by U.K. activists on Sept. 16.

References to Trump’s role in the Epstein files, which have yet to be released in full to the public at this time, were then replaced with “Goldblum” by the narrator, who added of Trump, “I hereby nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

In wake of the ABC’s decision to pull the program and the FCC and Carr’s warning to broadcast companies that the government agency is “not done yet” when it comes to cancelling late night programming, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) have also condemned the network’s decision.