Donald Trump “lost this round,” according to Ari Melber, after Jimmy Kimmel’s record-breaking return to ABC. On Wednesday’s The Beat, Melber described the episode as a “ratings bonanza,” reporting that 6 million viewers tuned in for Tuesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live. Meanwhile, the comedian’s opening monologue had amassed over 26 million views on social media by Thursday morning.
Melber argued that the ratings demonstrate how the Trump administration’s efforts to stifle criticism from late-night hosts spectacularly backfired. “When you try to suppress something, you sometimes draw more attention to it,” he noted.
The host referred to a well-known term for this effect: the Streisand Effect. Coined in 2005 after Barbra Streisand attempted to block a single photo of her California home, the effort “ended up backfiring and drawing far more interest,” Melber explained.
However, Melber cautioned that the Streisand Effect only occurs when the content being suppressed is still accessible.
“So it is a fact that there’s more interest in Kimmel’s monologue, but — yes, ‘but’ I’m sorry there’s always a ‘but’ these days — that still will only matter in reality if there is the freedom to find the material and get it,” he said. “The Streisand Effect does not work in North Korea or places with legal, practical, tech limits on what you might find on your TV or on their version of what they call the internet, which is censored.”
Melber also pointed out that many local affiliates run by Nexstar and Sinclair continue to refuse airing Kimmel’s show, apparently aligning with “the MAGA government crackdown” and nudging America closer to autocratic practices seen in countries like North Korea.
“There’s an old saying in politics, that it’s a thin line between the impossible and the inevitable, meaning sometimes something that you don’t think could ever happen, happens,” Melber continued. He noted that the U.S. currently has “a leader who openly tries to abuse government power to sacrifice or end the very first amendment of our Constitution” and “the basis for all the rest of our civic dialog and democracy.”
While many Americans may assume the nation will never follow the path of North Korea or other autocracies, Melber warned, “that’s where we are.” He emphasized that the only way to counter further censorship is for citizens to unite and defend their freedoms. “The rest is up to us,” he concluded.
