Spectrum News 1: Ahead of reinstatement, California lawmakers rally for free speech outside of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live'
HOLLYWOOD — Hours before Disney announced it was restoring Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show less than a week after suspending it indefinitely, six U.S. Congress members representing California rallied near his studio in Hollywood on Monday in support of free speech and to push back on the Trump administration's demands that Kimmel be taken off the air.
Joined by Los Angeles lawmakers and various unions representing film and television industry workers, they called on Disney CEO Bob Iger to return "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to its broadcast lineup and for the public to make their voices heard.
“Let’s call this what it is. It is an attempt at blatant government censorship,” Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., said outside the Dolby Theater on Hollywood Boulevard as onlookers held up signs saying, “comedy is free speech,” “Kimmel = First Amendment” and “cancel Disney.”
“This is not a partisan issue. It is an American issue,” Friedman said at the event, where she was joined with five other Congress members who represent Southern California in Washington, D.C., all of whom are Democrats.
“Free speech is not a suggestion or a footnote. It’s the very first amendment of the Constitution,” Friedman added, holding up a copy of the amendment that highlighted the words, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Last Wednesday, ABC suspended Kimmel’s show after he said that “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
Kirk’s assassination at a Sept. 10 appearance on a Utah college campus has set off a fierce debate over the First Amendment in an era of deep political division. President Donald Trump has blamed the “radical left” for Kirk’s death and threatened to go after liberal organizations and others he feels are maligning or celebrating Kirk’s death.
ABC, which had broadcast Jimmy Kimmel Live since 2003, said it would no longer air the program after Nexstar’s broadcasting division president Andrew Alford said Kimmel’s comments about the slain conservative activist “are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr also weighed in, saying Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick.” He said his agency had a strong case to hold Kimmel, ABC and the broadcaster’s parent company Walt Disney Co. accountable for the spread of misinformation. Carr claimed Kimmel intentionally misled the public about Kirk’s assassination, attributing his killing to a right-wing Trump supporter.
At Monday’s rally, Rep. Brad Sherman cited Charlie Kirk in a speech the late conservative activist gave earlier this year, quoting him as saying, “you should be allowed to say outrageous things. There is gross speech. There is evil speech, and it is all protected by the First Amendment.”
“Jimmy Kimmel did not contradict the work of Charlie Kirk. Donald Trump did, and his FCC chairman did,” Sherman said.
On Monday, hundreds of Hollywood and Broadways stars signed an open letter urging Americans to “fight to defend and preserve our constitutionally protected rights” following Kimmel’s show suspension. Robert DeNiro, Jennifer Aniston Selena Gomez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep were among the more than 430 actors, directors, writers and comedians who signed the letter from the American Civil Liberties Union that said Kimmel’s firing was “a dark moment for freedom of speech in our nation.”
During the rally, Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez said, “We’re not just fighting for our democracy and our rights to free speech. We are here to stand with our siblings, with the labor movement.”
He said 200 union jobs were on the line if the show’s suspension continued.
“LA is a union town,” he said. “It is the people that have the power, and especially here in the City of Angels.”