Late-night shows address Jimmy Kimmel suspension with humor and
solidarity
[September 19, 2025]
By AUDREY McAVOY and HALLIE GOLDEN
Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon opened their late-night
shows Thursday using a mix of humor and solidarity with suspended ABC
host Jimmy Kimmel.
Stewart opted for satire to critique ABC suspending “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
indefinitely following comments he made about the assassination of
conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Colbert took a more serious
approach, calling his suspension "blatant censorship.” Fallon praised
Kimmel and vowed to keep doing his show as usual. Then an announcer
spoke over him and replaced most of his critiques about President Donald
Trump with flattery.
Their guests the day after Kimmel's suspension — which also came two
months after CBS said it would cancel Colbert's show — varied widely.
Fallon’s guests were actor Jude Law, journalist Tom Llamas and actor and
singer Jonathan Groff — none of whom addressed Kimmel’s situation.
Stewart and Colbert interviewed guests who could address censorship
concerns raised by Kimmel’s suspension. Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize
recipient Maria Ressa spoke to Stewart.
When Stewart asked Ressa, the author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,”
tips on coping with the current moment, Ressa recounted how she and her
colleagues at the news site Rappler “just kept going” when she was faced
with 11 arrest warrants in one year under Philippine then-President
Rodrigo Duterte.
“We just kept doing our jobs. We just kept putting one foot in front of
the other,” Ressa said.
Stewart makes special appearance to skewer Kimmel suspension
Stewart's show opened with a voiceover promising adherence to the party
line.
“We have another fun, hilarious administration-compliant show,” it said.
He lavished praise on the president and satirized his criticism of large
cities and his deployment of the National Guard to fight their crime.
“Coming to you tonight from the real (expletive), the crime-ridden
cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no
one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this
place, am I right?” Stewart said.
“The Daily Show” set was refashioned with decorative gold engravings, in
a parody of gold accents Trump has added to the fireplace, doorway
arches, walls and other areas of the Oval Office.
Stewart fidgeted nervously as though he was worried about speaking the
correct talking points. When the audience members reacted with an “awww”
he whispered: “What are you doing? Shut up. You’re going to (expletive)
blow this for us.”
He took on a more stilted tone when he started describing Trump’s visit
to the United Kingdom, calling the president “our great father.”
“Gaze upon him. With a gait even more majestic than that of the royal
horses that prance before him,” he said.
Stewart normally hosts only on Mondays. The Emmy winner helmed “The
Daily Show” from 1999 through 2015, delivering sharp, satirical takes on
politics and current events and interviews with newsmakers. He returned
to host once a week during the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential
election.
Fallon opened his “Tonight Show” monologue addressing Kimmel’s
suspension. “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on.
And no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny
and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.”
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Oscar Villanueva holds a sign outside El Capitan Entertainment
Centre, where the late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" is staged,
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
 Swift suspension after remarks on
Kirk’s assassination
Kimmel made several remarks about the reaction to Kirk's killing on
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday and Tuesday nights, including that “many
in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of
Charlie Kirk.”
ABC suspended Kimmel's show after a group of ABC-affiliated stations
said it would not air the show, and Federal Communications
Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said his agency had a strong case
for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co.
accountable for spreading misinformation.
Kimmel has not commented. His supporters say Carr misread what the
comic said and that nowhere did he specifically suggest that Tyler
Robinson — the man Utah authorities allege fatally shot Kirk — was
conservative.
In July, CBS said it would cancel “The Late Show With Stephen
Colbert” next May. The network said it shut down the decades-old TV
institution for financial reasons. But the announcement came three
days after Colbert criticized the settlement between President
Donald Trump and Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, over a “60
Minutes” story.
'The Late Show' hosts past and present address suspension
Colbert started his monologue on Thursday with the animated song “Be
Our Guest” from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” but replaced the
lyrics with “Shut your trap. Shut your trap.”
He later addressed Kimmel directly, saying that he stands with him
and his staff.
“If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are
woefully naive,” he said.
He also responded to remarks Carr made that it is important for
broadcasters to push back on Disney programming “they determine
falls short of community values.”
“Well, you know what my community values are, buster? Freedom of
speech,” Colbert said to loud applause from his audience.
When Colbert talked with New Yorker editor David Remnick about
Kimmel's suspension, he said: “What we are seeing now is the
government acting at the direction of the president of the United
States to put pressure on, to manipulate, to silence and even to
shut down institutions of the free word."
David Letterman, Colbert's predecessor on “The Late Show,” lamented
the networks' moves.
“I feel bad about this, because we all see where see this is going,
correct? It’s managed media,” Letterman said during an appearance
Thursday at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York. “It’s no good.
It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.”
He added that people shouldn’t be fired just because they don’t
“suck up” to what Letterman called “an authoritarian” president.
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