Jimmy Kimmel’s sudden suspension has been the talk of the town now, and the fallout concerning the event has even gotten messier. Former President Barack Obama is also being dragged into the mess. According to reports, ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live off the air “indefinitely.” Barack Obama took to his X handle to accuse the current President Donald Trump and his White House, comprising strong media companies, for silencing the voices that they don’t like.
Obama wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.” He further took it to another follow-up post, “This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”
However, here’s where the opposition hit back. Karoline Leavitt fired back on Fox News’ Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany, “With all due respect to former President Obama, he has no idea what he’s talking about.” The suspension that took place of Kimmel’s long-running late-night show is coming through a significant backlash from conservatives, who were enraged over his Monday night monologue about MAGA’s reaction to right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting.
The controversy took a hike consequent to Trump’s FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, who also threatened ABC’s license. And Donald Trump himself cheered the decision of the network almost instantly. And this isn’t Carr’s first rodeo. He’s previously gone after ABC and its corporate parent, even backing Trump’s lawsuit that squeezed $16 million out of both CBS and ABC’s parent companies, according to NPR.
The move has rattled free speech advocates, who see Kimmel’s suspension as a dangerous sign. Christopher Anders of the ACLU blasted the development as “beyond McCarthyism.” He warned, “Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don’t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke. The Trump administration’s actions, paired with ABC’s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.”
Still, Leavitt insisted the White House’s hands are clean. She told McEnany, “The decision to fire Jimmy Kimmel and to cancel his show came from executives at ABC. That has now been reported and I can assure you it did not come from the White House, and there was no pressure given from the president of the United States.”
In a moment like this, when tensions are high, part of the job of the president is to remind us of the ties that bind us together. pic.twitter.com/4TGMufay1k
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 20, 2025
Leavitt even revealed she was the one who broke the news to Trump while he was overseas in the UK. And she made sure to throw shade at Kimmel’s ratings while defending ABC’s move. “It was a decision that was made by ABC because Jimmy Kimmel chose to knowingly lie to his audience on his program about the death of a highly respected man when our country is in a state of mourning,” she said. “That was a decision that he made, and he is now facing a consequence for that decision and for that lie.”
She added that Kimmel’s Emmy-winning show was already struggling in the numbers: “His ratings were in the gutter,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump is “pleased” with ABC’s decision. For now, Jimmy Kimmel Live remains off-air. It is sparking a bigger national fight about where free speech ends, and political pressure begins.
