FCC Chairman Says Kimmel Comments Seemed to Mislead the Public

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Jimmy Kimmel’s comments about the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk “appeared to mislead the public about a significant fact.”

Speaking on CNBC on Thursday, Carr said: “Jimmy Kimmel is not Johnny Carson. It was not making fun of or pillorying me or the administration or the president. It was appearing to directly mislead the American public about a significant fact” about the assassination.

Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air indefinitely on Wednesday night after comments he made earlier in the week. The company announced the decision minutes after Nexstar Media Group Inc., which owns dozens of ABC TV affiliates, said it would pull the show from its stations over remarks that were “offensive and insensitive.”

Kimmel, who has been a vocal critic of Trump, accused Republicans of using Kirk’s death to criticize their opponents.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said in his Sept. 15 monologue.

Carr told podcast host Benny Johnson that he had a strong case to punish Kimmel, ABC and Disney. The FCC grants licenses to broadcasters such as ABC affiliates. 

“Broadcast is different,” Carr said on CNBC on Thursday. “Broadcast TV is different. We’re on a cable show right now. You don’t have an FCC license. You don’t have an obligation to serve the public interest. Podcasts don’t either,” Carr said. “But if you have a broadcast TV license, that means that you have something that very few people have and you’re excluding other people from having access to that valuable public resource, and it comes with an obligation to serve the public interest.”

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.