Donald Trump Claims ‘Licensed’ Networks Are ‘Not Allowed’ to Rail on Him After ABC Halts Jimmy Kimmel Live! amid FCC Pressure

President Donald Trump is making new claims about what broadcasters can and cannot do when covering his administration, one day after Jimmy Kimmel Live! was taken off the air indefinitely by ABC over comments he made about Charlie Kirk’s death.

On Thursday, Sept. 18, Trump spoke on Air Force One, saying many networks are “97% against” him and give him “wholly bad publicity.” He added, “I mean they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”

“When you have a network and evening shows that only attack Trump, that’s all they do,” he said. “If you look back, they haven’t had a conservative one in years. All they do is hit Trump.”

Trump claimed networks are licensed and “not allowed to do that,” though he also said the decision to revoke TV licenses would not be up to him. “It will be up to Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He’s a patriot. He loves our country, and he’s a tough guy.”

Brendan Carr, 46, was appointed FCC chair by Trump. After Kimmel’s suspension, he said the agency is “not done yet” making changes to the “media ecosystem.”

“Our goal is to make sure broadcasters are serving the public interest,” Carr said on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. “If there are local TV stations that don’t think running that programming does it, they can preempt it under the law. We’ll see how this plays out.”

Carr added that the U.S. is “in the midst of a massive shift in dynamics in the media ecosystem for many reasons, including the permission structure that President Trump’s election has provided. We’re not done yet seeing the consequences of that.”

Kimmel mentioned Kirk, who was shot and killed at a speaking event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 at age 31, during Monday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! broadcast.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to say the kid who murdered Charlie Kirk was anything other than one of them and using it for political points,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

Kimmel also showed news clips of Trump shifting conversations about Kirk’s death to the construction of the new White House Ballroom. “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend,” Kimmel said. “This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

Following Kimmel’s comments, Carr hinted at FCC action. On Benny Johnson’s podcast, he said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Companies can change conduct and act on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC.”

Later, Disney’s ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely. Nexstar, a large U.S. local broadcast company, said it would replace Kimmel’s show with other programming, adding pressure on ABC.

Nexstar owns over 200 TV stations in 116 markets and is in the middle of a major acquisition needing approval from the Trump administration.

Trump spoke about Kimmel, 57, during his state visit to the U.K. on Sept. 18, calling the hiatus a firing rather than a suspension.

“Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings and said a horrible thing about a great man named Charlie Kirk,” Trump said. “Jimmy Kimmel is not talented, had very bad ratings, and should have been fired a long time ago.”

“You can call that free speech or not,” he continued. “He was fired for lack of talent.”

The uncertainty over Kimmel’s future continues amid his ongoing feud with Trump. Trump suggested Jimmy Kimmel Live! could be the next late-night casualty after CBS canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in July.

Before Trump’s comments, Kimmel hinted at ending his long-running show. He told the Los Angeles Times in February 2024 that his three-year contract signed in 2022 would likely be his last. “I hate to say it because everyone’s laughing — each time I think that, it turns out not to be the case,” he said.

“I still have a little more than two years left on my contract, and that seems pretty good,” he added. “That seems like enough.”