Kimmel: Original Charlie Kirk remarks ‘maliciously’ mischaracterized
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel said Wednesday that his comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination that preceded his brief suspension by ABC were deliberately mischaracterized by his critics.
“It was intentionally, and I think maliciously, mischaracterized,” Kimmel said in an appearance on “Bloomberg Screentime” with Bloomberg reporter Lucas Shaw.
Kimmel said the situation was “very unfair to my bosses at Disney,” and they collectively “aimed to correct it.”
At first the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host said he “didn’t think there was a big problem” with what he had said after Kirk was shot. “I just saw it as distortion on the part of some of the right-wing media networks, and I aimed to correct it.”
Kimmel realized there was a problem “when they pulled the show off the air,” he told Shaw with a joking tone, which caused the audience to laugh. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s unusual.'”
While the entertainment world criticized the show’s suspension, Kimmel said several “good conversations” were had between him and his bosses at Disney.
The day after Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, Kimmel called the death a “senseless murder” in his opening monologue.
“I’ve seen a lot of extraordinarily vile responses to this from both sides of the political spectrum,” Kimmel said. “Some people are cheering this, which is something I won’t ever understand.”
“With all these terrible things happening, you would think that our president would at least make an attempt to bring us together, but he didn’t,” the host continued.
“President Obama did. President Biden did. Presidents Bush and Clinton did,” he said, while showing screenshots of former presidents’ social media statements. “President Trump did not. Instead, he blamed Democrats for their rhetoric.”
The following Monday, Kimmel said his show “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.”
Several media outlets, including Variety and The New York Times, reported this was the remark that led ABC to suspend his program after he was criticized by conservatives and the Trump administration, including the head of the Federal Communications Commission.
The president cheered the suspension and slammed ABC for ending it.
“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE.”