Jimmy Kimmel is Back!

Breaking news on Jimmy Kimmel and autism.

Jimmy Kimmel coming back to late night television.

ABC chose to bring back their low rating nighttime host.

We are in for a monologue that will be a marker in late night show history.

It's going to be in a moment.

Yeah, no question. A huge moment in American history.

It's one of the most pivotal moments in broadcast history.

He will be delivering what is being dubbed the most anticipated monologue in late night in years.

Maybe we should change?

Yeah.

From Hollywood, it's Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tonight, Glenn Powell and music from Sarah McLachlan with Cleto and the Cletones.

And now, Jimmy Kimmel! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. If you're just joining us, we are preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode of Celebrity Family Feud to bring you this special report. I'm happy to be here tonight with you.

I... I... I... I am not... I... I...

I...

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. It's been overwhelming. I've heard from a lot of people over the last six days. I've heard from all the people in the world over the last six days. Everyone I have ever met has reached out 10 or 11 times. Weird characters from my past are even, the guy who fired me from my first radio job in Seattle,

where we are not airing tonight, by the way, sorry, Seattle, His name is Larry. In 1989, Larry tried to force me to do a bit called Jokes for Donuts, where people would call in with a joke and I would give them donuts. I refused to do it, and then I made a lot of fun of Larry

for suggesting it. And eventually, Larry fired me, and I had to move back in with my parents. But even he wrote in to cheer me up. Thank you, Larry. And I want to thank everyone who checked in.

It will take all week to list all of them.

But some that I do especially want to mention are my fellow late night talk show hosts, my friend Stephen Colbert, who's found himself in this predicament. My friends Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Conan O'Brien, James Corden, Arsenio, Kathy,

Wanda, Chelsea, even Jay reached out. I heard from late night hosts in other countries, from Ireland and from Germany. The guy in Germany offered me a job. Can you imagine? This country has become so authoritarian,

the Germans are like, come here.

Come loose.

My boyhood idols Howard Stern and David Letterman were very considerate and kind. And I feel honored to be part of a group of people that knows what goes into doing a show like this. And I also want to thank all of you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to you.

Who supported our show, cared enough to do something about it, to make your voices heard so that mine could be heard. I will never forget it. And maybe, really, maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don't support my show

and what I believe, but support my right to share those beliefs anyway.

Yeah! Yeah!

Yeah!

People who I never would have imagined, like Ben Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very beautiful on my behalf.

I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired.

Oh, wait, no, not that. The other part.

But let me tell you, if the government gets in the business of saying, we don't like what you, the media, have said, we're going to ban you from the airwaves if you don't say what we like, that will end up bad for conservatives.

I don't think I've ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is right. He's absolutely right.

This affects all of us, including him.

I mean, think about it.

If Ted Cruz can't speak freely, then he can't cast spells on the Smurfs. Even though I don't agree with many of those people on most subjects, some of the things they say even make me want to throw up. It takes courage for them to speak out

against this administration. And they did, and they deserve credit for it.

And thanks.

Thank you.

For telling your followers that our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television, and that we have to stand up to it. I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do not say on television, and that we have to stand up to it. I've been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight. And the truth is, I don't think what I have to say

is going to make much of a difference. If you like me, you like me. If you don't, you don't. I have no illusions about changing anyone's mind. But I do want to make something clear, because it's important to me as a human. is you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.

I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram of the day he was killed sending love to his family and asking for compassion. And I meant it, and I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group

for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger,

I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there's a good chance I'd have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don't agree on politics at all.

I don't think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution. And it isn't, ever. And also, selfishly,

I am a person who gets a lot of threats.

I get many ugly and scary threats against my life, my wife, my kids, my coworkers, because of what I choose to say. And I know those threats don't come from the kind of people on the right who I know and love. So that's what I wanted to say on that subject.

But I don't want to make this about me because, and I know this is what people say when they make things about them, but I really don't. This show, this show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country

that allows us to have a show like this.

Yeah! Yeah. that allows us to have a show like this. Yeah! Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I mean, I've had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians and talk show hosts from countries like Russia, countries in the Middle East, who tell me they would get thrown in prison for making fun of those in power. And worse than being thrown in prison,

they know how lucky we are here. Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country. And that's something I'm embarrassed to say I took for granted until I pulled my friend Steven off the air and tried to coerce the affiliates who

run our show in the cities that you live in to take my show off the air. That's not legal. That's not American. That is un-American.

And it is so dangerous.

I want you to think about this.

Should the government be allowed to regulate which podcasts the cell phone companies and Wi-Fi providers are allowed to let you download to make sure they serve the public interest? You think that sounds crazy? No! 10 years ago, this sounded crazy.

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American company, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and that these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead, in addition to being a direct violation

of the First Amendment, is not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public. Ted Cruz said he sounded like a mafioso. Although, I don't know, if you want to hear a mob boss make a threat like that, you have to hide a microphone in a deli

and park outside in a van with a tape recorder all night long. This genius said it on a podcast. Brendan Carr is the most embarrassing car Republicans have embraced since this one. And that's saying something. The FCC has a tradition of meddling where they shouldn't under many administrations,

but it wasn't always like this. There was an FCC commissioner back in 2022 who worked under Joe Biden who was spot on. He wrote, President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion.

That's why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship. You know who wrote that? FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who later was appointed chairman of the FCC by this former crusader for free speech.

If we don't have free speech, then we just don't have a free country. It's as simple as that. If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes, one by one, they'll go down.

That was also in 2022, and I wonder, how did that guy turn into this guy?

Who would you like to see replace Kimmel on late night?

A lot of people. Anybody could replace him.

The guy had no talent.

Kimmel had, look, he was fired.

He had no talent. He's a whack job, but he had no talent. And more importantly than talent, he had no, because a lot of people have no talent, they get ratings. But he had no ratings.

Well.

Ooh.

I do tonight.

Yes! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried his best to cancel me, instead he forced millions of people to watch the show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to distract us from this now. A lot of people have been asking me if there are conditions for my return to the air, and there is one. Disney has asked me to read the following statement. And I agreed to do it.

Here we go. To reactivate your Disney Plus and Hulu account, open the Disney Plus app on your smart TV or TV- TV connected device. I've been fortunate to work at a company that has allowed me to do the show the way we want

to do it for almost 23 years. I've done almost 4,000 shows on ABC. And over that time, the people who run this network have allowed me to evolve and to stretch the boundaries of what was once traditional for a late night talk show, even when it made them uncomfortable,

which I do a lot. Every night, they've defended my right to poke fun at our leaders and to advocate for subjects that I think are important by allowing me to use their platform. And I am very grateful for that.

With that said, I was not happy when they pulled me off the air on Wednesday. I did not agree with that decision, and I told them that. And we had many conversations. I shared my point of view. They shared theirs.

We talked it through. And at the end, even though they didn't have to, they really didn't have to, this is a giant company. We have short attention spans, And I am a tiny part of the Disney Corporation. They welcomed me back on the air. And I thank them for that.

And so do I.

I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of them.

But unfortunately, and I think unjustly, this puts them at risk. The President of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs.

Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke.

He was...

-...somehow... -...able to squeeze Colbert out of CBS. Then he turned his sights on me, and now he's openly rooting for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows who don't make millions of dollars.

And I hope that if that happens, or if there's even any hint of that happening, you will be ten times as loud as you were this week. We have to speak out against this guy.

Because he's not stopping.

And it's not just comedy.

He's gunning for our journalists, too. He's suing them. He's bullying them. Over the weekend, his Foxy friend, Pete Hegseth, announced a new policy that requires journalists with Pentagon press credentials to sign a pledge promising

not to report information that hasn't been explicitly authorized for release. That includes unclassified information. They want to pick and choose what the news is. I know that's not as interesting as muzzling a comedian, but it's so important to have a free press,

and it is nuts that we aren't paying more attention to it.

Yeah, I mean.

I mean.

Yeah. Woo! Woo! Woo!

Walter Cronkite must be spinning in his grave right now. He's dead, right?

Yeah.

Look, I never imagined I would be in a situation like this. I barely paid attention in school. But one thing I did learn from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn't like is anti-American.

That's anti-American. And I am so glad we have some solidarity on that from the right and the left and from those in the middle, like Joe Rogan. Maybe the silver lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on,

and maybe we'll even find another one. Maybe we can get a little bit closer together. We do agree on a lot of things. We agree on keeping our children safe from guns, from reproductive rights for women, Social Security, affordable health care,

pediatric cancer research. These are all things that most Americans support. Let's stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want. OK? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

There was a moment over the weekend, a very beautiful moment. I don't know if you saw this. On Sunday, Erica Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should follow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That's it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply. And I hope it...

it touches many. And if there's anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that, not this. So thank you for listening. And I'll have more to say when we come back.

What about also those who say that you're being,

in recent months, awfully thin-skinned?

I've always been thin-skinned.

I've been thin-skinned from day one. Welcome back to Jimmy Kimmel Live.

We are still on the air in most of the country, except ironically for Washington, DC, where we have been preempted. We are off the air in Nashville, New Orleans, Portland, Oregon, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis, where none of my wife's family is able to watch the show tonight.

So sorry, Aunt Sharon. Sorry, Aunt Maureen. You'll have to go to YouTube, I guess. But I am glad to be back at work. It was touch and go for a minute. Guillermo did something very sweet, actually. He called me, and he offered to sell his LeBoo-Boos.

I will never forget that gesture, my friend. He's Guillermo.

Yes. I mean, I've done a lot of talking.

Is there anything you would like to share with the audience tonight?

Sure. I would like to say, listen, this world needs more people like Jimmy Kimmel. He is the best. He's a great man, a great father. And thank you, Jimmy.

And I love you, and I stand with you all the way. And I love you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That's very sweet.

If you stand with me all the way, why did Ryan Seacrest call me and tell me you would keep texting him over and over again?

Never, never.

That was wrong Mexican.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah.

We were in the middle, and in a lot of ways still are in the middle, of an unprecedented fix. After almost 23 years on the air, we're suddenly not being broadcast in 20% of the country, which is not a situation we relish. So we reached out to the chairman of the FCC,

Brendan Carney. He has, to his credit, agreed to join us from his office in Washington. And here he is now. Thank you, Chairman Carr, for being with us tonight.

You tell Whoopi over there she better show a little respect, or the only view she's getting is from under George Washington. The bridge, not the guy.

Excuse me, sir? Yeah, hi. It's...

Well, what is this?

You sneak up on me?

You don't sneak up on a person.

It's not nice.

I'm sorry. What is your name?

Because I was expecting to talk to the chairman of the FCC.

You don't need to know my name.

And I am the new chairman of the FCC.

You were appointed FCC chairman by Donald Trump?

Sir Trump, yes. I used to do the same work for the man here and there in Atlantic City.

But did I just hear you on the phone threatening Whoopi Goldberg?

No, I would never threaten Ms. Goldstein. I was just teaching her a lesson about consequences.

No, well, pardon me for saying so. Maybe you're the wrong guy to talk to, but it seems like the FCC is using mob tactics to suppress free speech.

What the f*** did you just say to me?

I didn't mean any offense. You know you can't curse or we'll get fined by the FCC.

I am the f***ing FCC.

I can f***ing say whatever the f*** I want.

I don't know.

Well this does, it sounds a little like threats and intimidation to me, Chairman.

Stop that. Look, it's just me, Jimmy, the chairman of the FCC, gently suggesting that you gently shut the f*** up.

But you can't say that.

That's a violation of free speech.

Oh, yeah, about that.

Speech, it ain't free no more.

What?

It's not free no more?

Yeah, we're charging by the word now.

You're charging by the word now.

You're charging by the word? How much are you charging?

It depends on what you want to say. Like, you want to say something nice about the president's beautiful, thick, yellow hair, how he can do his makeup better than any broad, that's free.

Uh-huh.

OK.

All right. All right.

That seems reasonable. But if you want to do a joke like he's so fat he needs two seats on the Epstein jet, that's going to cost you.

That's going to cost you.

OK.

Could I just ask just for clarity, because it's a pretty good joke, how much would that one cost me?

Couple of fingers, maybe a tooth. And you know how concentrated he is.

So is this how things are gonna go from now on?

We also got a new motto at the FCC. Sticks and stones may break your bones.

And?

And?

Oh.

Well, the rest of that is, but I think words can never harm you.

Oh, well, they can harm you now. Let's make sure you pick the right words, capisce?

I guess I capisce, but I don't think, oh, it sounds like you got a call there, huh?

Hi, handsome. I mean, I'm sorry, Mr. President. OK, OK, you got it, sir. You, okay, okay. You got it, sir. You got it.

Bye.

What did you say?

Look, I got to go.

A couple of cases of Tylenol fell off a truck and now I got to figure out how to put autism

in them.

Oh, okay.

Well, that sounds tricky.

So good luck with that, sir.

Good luck with you and I'll be watching you, Kimmel. Maybe not on ABC. That's up to you.

OK.

Well, thank you so much for your time.

And it is my honor to serve the public interest. I know it is. I know.

I know it is. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

I got to tell you, I like the new guy a lot. You know, as of this taping, the president has not weighed in on ABC's decision to put us back on the air. I don't know, maybe he's saving it for his late night toilet time, but his magnificence had other business

today in New York, big business addressing the United Nations, which got off to a rocky start when the Trumps hit the escalator, and it suddenly stopped.

They had to walk up.

He broke the escalator. Where was that escalator 10 years ago when we needed it on the way down?

Trump had trouble with his teleprompter today,

but spoke anyway for almost an hour off the cuff in front of all these foreign leaders. And when you think about uniting nations, no one does it better than Don.

It's time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. I can tell you. I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.

Well, if that doesn't get him the Nobel Prize,

I don't know what will.

Melania was, she sat for the speech. She was there not just in her capacity as First Lady, but also as a representative for all the unsatisfied Slovenian women of the world. Rambl Stiltskin was all over the map today. He ranted about windmills.

He bragged about ending seven wars. He threatened the guy who operates the teleprompter. He complained about being screwed out of a deal to renovate the building they were in, the United Nations building. He said, you could have had marble.

You got terrazzo. You could have had mahogany. You got plastic instead. Five translators had to be hospitalized for confusion. But none of that compared to the headache he is creating with his buddy RFK blaming autism on Tylenol.

His press conference yesterday was an all-timer. Trump, Bobby Brainworm, and Dr. Oz strongly recommend that pregnant women stop taking Tylenol immediately. And the president was very persuasive making his case.

When the alternative is that nothing bad can happen, let's do it now. I was just saying to Bobby and the group, let's do it now. Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it.

Don't take it.

That's right. Follow the advice of Donald Trump. And you, too, can look like a glazed ham with deep vein thrombosis.

It can only good happen.

Woo!

This is Tylenol we're talking about, the thing that you take when they won't let you take anything that works. It's never, they gave me Tylenol. It's always, they gave me, all they gave me was f***ing Tylenol.

But make no mistake, this was an historic announcement. This was a major breakthrough in the field of medicine. And just in case it isn't clear, if someone comes up and offers you a Tylenol, you should not take it.

Don't take Tylenol, you should not take it. Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it. With Tylenol, don't take it.

Don't take it.

Don't use Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol. Fight like hell not to take it. I think you shouldn't take it. Don't take Tylenol.

The baby goes, take a cup of Tylenol. I've heard that for years. Take Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol. Don't have your baby take Tylenol. Don't give Tylenol to the baby. Don't give Tylenol to the baby. Don't give your baby Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol.

Don't take Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it. Don't take it. Don't take it. So that's it. There's nothing much to say. Don't take Tylenol.

Just don't take it. And I just say it again. Don't take Tylenol. Don't take it. Don't take it.

All right, Marko.