‘The Five’: Even in death, Charlie’s winning debates

Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person He had very bad ratings and they should have fired him a long time ago So, you know, you can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent President Trump laying into Jimmy Kimmel after ABC suspended his show indefinitely. Kimmel falsely tried to claim that Charlie Kirk's killer was MAGA, despite a mountain

of evidence pointing to his left-wing ideology. Here are those comments. We had 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. Democrats and the media immediately melting down over the suspension,

breathlessly claiming that free speech was under attack. This is just the latest chapter in Donald Trump's ongoing campaign to crack down on free speech. We saw the government step up and give a hard shove, and then we saw a compliant company turn around and suspend Mr. Kimmel. This is so serious, Erin.

America is a less free place if late-night comedians cannot do and say what they want. When I see you are wearing a hat, what does that hat say? You're damn right I am, John. I was a guest on the Jimmy Kimmel show. This moment, know that our democracy is on the line.

But they failed to tell you the whole story and how Kimmel's suspension was decided by the market. The move by ABC came after Nexstar and Sinclair, two major players who own a ton of ABC affiliates across America,

preempted his late-night show, with Nexstar saying that the comments don't reflect the, quote, spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local

communities in which we are located. Kimmel reportedly wasn't going to apologize for lying about the suspect. Instead, he planned to claim

that he was taken out of context. The old out of context defense, Greg. Listen, is this indeed in pinging on free speech or is

this just accountability for what someone says? It could be a little of everything, but it's great. Even in death, death. Charlie keeps winning debates. You know the media this is what's

disgusting just just look at the reaction. The media is trying to make Jimmy Kimmel into their Charlie Kirk. As if like getting fired is the same as getting fired upon that's what disgusts me is how they're trying, they're in a, this is a blatant effort to get the stink off them.

The decades of brainwash that created justification for violence and for murder. Sorry guys, he's not a victim. The victim is Charlie Kirk. The victims are his family. I don't shed any tears for a lefty millionaire

who can still go home and see his kids. So, so this, look at this through that prism. Jason Bateman predicts a reckoning over a Kimmel suspension. Sorry, dude. The reckoning began without you.

Your side got thousands of conservatives thrown off social media. CNN tried to get Fox off the air. Do you remember that? Stelter that that. Don't say that. Stelter tried to get us off the air and we're on a private airwave.

We're not in a public thing like like ABC is. While they were doing this, they were promoting rhetoric that demonized people with different viewpoints. So there isn't a both sides here. You can't turn Kimmel into Kirk. That is disgusting.

And I'm gonna control myself. Let's look at the obvious here. You have to look at this like mutually assured destruction. Facebook was pressured by the president or the White House to throw people out. Trump was thrown off Twitter.

You had Roseanne, Gina Carino, Dave Chappelle, Shane Gillis, JK Rowling. The list is endless. We could take an whole hour to do it. How do you stop that? Mutually assured destruction.

Like what Trump is doing with lawfare. You hunted us, you hunted Republicans, you hunted conservatives. Well, maybe you won't hunt us anymore if we hunt you. And lastly, I am so tired of these self-centered fools on CNN and MSNBC with their performative outrage because they will never, ever stand outside

before thousands of people and debate people who don't like them. They are, like me, indoor cats. They use, was it Essie Cupp used the phrase, systematically killing free speech? A young man was systematically killed

over free speech last week. Kimmel has every right and every opportunity to do a live, free show outdoors, and so could all those people on CNN, but they don't. If they did, they probably wouldn't get shot because no one is demonizing them.

No one is calling them Hitler. That was your gig. And this wasn't in a vacuum, Jesse. This was in a climate where you have someone who represents a company and instructs half of the country not to watch the show.

That's what Kimmel did when he told anyone that voted for Trump to not watch his show. As the president pointed out, his ratings had absolutely plummeted.

So, from a boss and market perspective, this wasn't the first time. If he was actually involved in telling the truth, then maybe they would have cut him some slack but the reality is that his show sucked no one watched it and so when he pedals

filthy lies that's the last straw not the first yeah it's not about censorship it's about standards the country is red-hot Charlie's body isn't even buried yet and the face of the network goes out and falsely frames Maga as the assassin that's a flat-out lie it's disrespectful it's crass and it puts a goes out and falsely frames MAGA as the assassin. That's a flat out lie. It's disrespectful, it's crass,

and it puts a target on our back. And there was an affiliate revolt. It's called the marketplace. So Bob Iger at Disney says, yeah, we're gonna put Kimmel on ice because we have a conscience.

We have standards here. And it's not like ABC hasn't done this before. They suspended Whoopi. They suspended Brian Ross. They suspend a lot of people. A lot of people in this business get suspended

when we say obnoxious things, racist, sexist, untrue things, unethical things. It's a high wire act. And sometimes we screw up and he screwed up so we got benched. Big deal.

Sometimes the networks get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes they go too far and sometimes they don't go far enough.

ABC suspended the reporter who was right about Paul Pelosi. And they suspended Kimmel who was wrong about Charlie Kirk. He's not a martyr, he's a multi-millionaire comedian who if he doesn't want to play in this sandbox with standards can do a show for millions on Netflix or Apple TV.

It is funny though how the Democrats always defend the crooks, the liars, and the snobby millionaires. whether it's Smollett, whether it's Colbert, this cat, Avenatti or the Maryland dad. They never defend families or cops or the working man. They are more upset about this guy getting suspended than Charlie getting shot. And they love government censorship.

They were applauding when Joe Biden was telling big tech to censor us for telling the truth about covid or telling jokes about Fauci so everybody needs to chill will probably come back in a few days and got fell be back to whooping his butt. True and that's the thing Harold courts have held and we know it better than anyone that hosts are responsible for what

is said on air by themselves and even their guests. And so, for the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild and all these actors to come out and say what a death-to-democracy moment this is aren't quite seeing the forest for the trees,

that it's actually simply a business and a market who, frankly, made the right decision. So, I slightly differ. Good to be with you and glad to be back around the table. I think a couple of things. If you make your living in this world through words, written word, the said word, the spoken word,

today or last night might cause you to think differently about where we are. I watched the president today. I give the president the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things. He was on Air Force One coming back

from a very successful trip in London. He says they're 97% against. They give me only bad press. He was talking about the broadcast news. People get public licenses. They're getting a license.

I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. Now, if you didn't tell me who said that, I would never think that quote was an American president, Democrat, Republican, whatever. I would think that that sounds like something Putin would say. He took one of our own.

Thank God we got him out, Evan. I would think it was something Orban would say in Hungary. I would think it'd be something that the North Korea guy would say. Number two, is SNL next? The president in his quote last night said that NBC ought to be on notice as well.

And Saturday Night Live has done some of the great skits. I love that first part of it where they take on the political news of the day. I remember how much they took on Clinton. I was in Congress at the time. I had to think Clinton was probably upset.

I laughed about some of the things, some of the things I didn't laugh about. But it was funny. They took on H.W. Bush. There were so many. They took on Ross Perot when he was running. They took on W.

They took on Clinton. They also got rid of Shane Gillis, which means they made a decision about people they didn't want on the show. brother, if there's a Democrat that gets elected and he or she decides to come after Greg Guthrie, I will defend you as much as I'm defending this. I just think this is a, as much as we disagree with what he said, and some of it was not funny what Jim O'Kimmel said, Jimmy Kimmel said, but there were so many

aspects of this that we're not talking about. The company Nexstar, which is a great company, they're in the middle of trying to acquire a company and the person's gonna make the decision about whether or not they can acquire the entity is the FCC. And Mr. Carr did not run away from that point last night on television on our great Sean Hannity show. He was quoted last night as saying,

we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Again, I would think this was a foreign leader saying this, not the United States. So some of this humor I don't like, and I don't laugh at some of this stuff at night. But I'm just not convinced that the state should be deciding free press. And more importantly, when Mr. President, when President Trump said he has no talent, he should be off, I didn't realize that the person that would be deciding whether or not

talent should be on television would be the President of the United States. There's no doubt people get suspended for things that they say or that they don't say or the way they say it. And networks, and for that matter, companies have every right to do that. But I would only say to Mr. Carr, who said that these broadcast licenses, that these people have to act in the public interest, and he said they have every right to go get

a podcast or go online. Think about this on most broadcast shows, news shows, the local licenses. They can't have a show for 30 minutes on how to build a Molotov cocktail. You know why? Because it's not in the public interest. They can't tell you how to build a nuclear bomb. You know why? It's not in the public interest. But you can do it here.

Mr. Carr, spend some of your time trying to figure out how we regulate these people, how we regulate the radicalization and all of this stuff online that's pummeling our kids and pummeling our society as much as you are this. The courts, you're right, Emily, will make the determination here. But I got to tell you, I'm a little alarmed today because I can't believe we're going to allow the government to tell us what's funny, what's not, and what's permissible. I got to try I can I just respond because there's a couple of things in there that I'm not following.

This is a public it's a public license. Trump can say whatever he wants. But if there is a if you if look, I think what you're arguing about is the role of the FCC. It has nothing to do with Trump. That's Trump, sir.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but no I'm talking about the idea of the FCC something that oversees a finite good Which is three networks. It seems kind of irrelevant and outdated But then you switch over you start talking about podcasts and stuff. Well, the FCC doesn't deal with that exactly He said they don't deal with that. That's where he should go I'm saying the public interest you cannot on a brought on the right. I understand how to build a Molotov cocktail Yeah, why could this in the public interest. We used to allow these guys to tell these jokes because we thought the marketplace would make this.

If you either watch them or you don't watch them. But I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to build a Molotov cocktail and you can't do it on these three networks, that doesn't mean you're being censored. You're gonna go off and do it somewhere else. Greg, I'm saying that's what he should be spending his time on. I don't think he has. Taking a license. The president said they're getting a license.

I would think maybe they're, these are his words, should be taken away. The focus should be, I believe, that was, I was just making a lot of point. The focus should be on these online guys. That's where the danger in the public interest

is being compromised, attacked, backwards every day of the week. But those are private. They're not public. I don't know how you, but anyway. Well, because that's still. The FCC, they still have to approve. I'm sorry, Emily, but they, but if one of these private guys tries to buy a private guy, like, they have to be approved by the FCC. That's where he should be spending his time, I think.

I didn't mean to. Yeah. actually and talk or see the reality is that it doesn't matter what he says because the FCC is the governing body so indeed if I start running up and down 6th Avenue screaming with my head off and no clothes on that I'll probably. Well there's a. Exactly one of the day this is an employee in this realm guys

and he can indeed start his own podcast we all have lots of clauses in our contracts and I'm sure Jimmy Kimmel does too. I work my day job is I work for a local Fox affiliate we have a job, I thank you I've been there a number of times because by the way just say I've made some mistakes not grand to have me pulled off the air. But I what

I will say is that there are rules and regulations we have lawyers come in once a year and kind of refresh everybody's memories on what we're allowed to say. There are boundaries. What Jimmy Kimmel said on the air was false. Even today in the New York Times,

and I'm gonna quote them, "'Criminal charges filed on Tuesday portray Mr. Robinson as a left-leaning assassin who praised LGBTQ views. They didn't say anything about MAGA. He was not part of the MAGA game. But I will tell you this,

this is a time where all of us really should kind of take a deep breath. My mother always told me, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. We're on cable TV. Yeah. always told me, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say it. This young- We're on cable TV here.

Yeah. But a young man was assassinated. Let's turn down the rhetoric a little bit. I don't think we need to hear that lecture right now. I think right now we're talking about something that is being put on us.

So the lecture of turn down the rhetoric or whatever, it sounds nice, but I'm not gonna hear it. Also, the same people that are right now horrified by this termination were the same people that applauded the instant you questioned a vaccine or the instant you questioned government decisions.

And that was the government that they were applauding. That is actually where they need to think about. They need to think about- But then you guys were against that. You guys were, and you guys were and I Was with you but now we're a mint. That's my point. This is not this is not question, okay

Free speech is a different bucket against the government other than just by the way the view they didn't even touch it today On their best behavior. We're telling their best be and their ABC