He literally didn't though? Why does this mistake keep being made. Kimmel made 0 assertions about the shooter. He did make assertions about the President and his conduct, however.
The sentence is convoluted but clearly implies that "this kid" was "one of the MAGA gang".
Is that what Kimmel meant? No, his point was that they (the MAGA gang) were exploiting the tragedy to "score political points". But it's not what he said, really. So arguments over meaning can at least happen in good faith. If someone says they're offended, I think it's not unreasonable to clarify and offer an apology.
...but not obviously to be sacrificed at an altar to the FCC commisioner.
What? This is crazy “find the authors purpose” gymnastics. The quote does nothing to imply that the kids is Maga or not. It does however directly commentates on “Maga gang”’s actions to try to paint him as anyone other than someone who could be MAGA. Thats the entire point of what was said
In every universe where the shooter is not "MAGA" (which, on the available evidence, includes ours), "trying to paint him as anyone else" is truthful, and not wrong. The entire point of a critique of this sort is to allege that someone did something wrong. The sentence does carry the implication that Kimmel is calling the shooter "MAGA" (i.e., either believes it, or wants to insinuate it) because otherwise there would be no reason, in Kimmel's position, to say any of it.
True.
> because otherwise there would be no reason, in Kimmel's position, to say any of it.
Untrue. In context, what he's saying (this is clear in the sentences before and after) is that MAGA is playing politics by arguing about attribution. Remember in the early hours it did look like the shooter might have been a groyper, and even Fuentes himself came out to disavow violence. By Kimmel's monologue, the trans angle had diluted that obviously. But if we're playing interpretation games you can point out he was using past tense, right?
The "offensive" content needs to be deliberately inferred, and the appropriate response is to clarify and apologize. We all know what actually happened isn't about what Kimmel actually said.
Look I don't even pretend to know the truth. But the sitting governor of Utah, the highest authority on the investigation (which is being done by Utah state investigators), said the shooter had a "leftest ideology". NYT source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/us/kirk-shooting-suspect-...
Now its fine to not believe the governor, but I am not one of the investigators so thats as good as I can get unless I believe in a conspiracy by the state of Utah itself, which I think warrants evidence.
Personally I don't believe in "group X verbed Y", as I do not believe that groups can act. Liberals didn't shoot anyone, conservatives didn't shoot anyone; a single individual person shot someone. Group identity is not interesting to me, nor do I find it helpful. I do find it very inflammatory tho, and think is a deplorable thing to say to uninformed viewers at home.
By "not nearly as bad as you think", what I mean is, the FCC has always policed content on broadcast television. Shows have been cut mid-air due to foul language. We have never had "freedom of speech" on broadcast television. And, if you notice that it's not even clear the FCC took any action, that it was actually ABC's distributors who caused the ruckus, then this is bog-standard "cancel culture", which, while bad, is hardly the death of free speech. I'd be perfectly unbothered if broadcast television died completely, thus reducing the FCCs ability to control the media period.
Yes, I'd love to live in a world with less censorship, less stupidity, less government control, but that's not the world we live in, and its not the world we used to live in, either.
For boring stuff like sex and profanity! When was the last time a show was pulled under threat of FCC action because of political speech? Has it ever happened before? And it's happening again, just days after it worked the first time.
Your cynicism, whether it's deliberate or not, is serving you very badly here.
> And, if you notice that it's not even clear the FCC took any action
Good grief. Brendan Carr literally made the threat on camera, in public. That's the way extortion works. You don't have to take the action because the target submits.
I absolutely agree the FCC is overstepping and that the FCC Chair is doing a bad thing by making such comments, but until the FCC as an organization actually issues a fine or pulls a license, nothing has actually happened. If what I'm saying puts me into some particular camp that you're opposed to, well, the scissor statement worked. And that makes me much more upset than any of this drama.
Two things - firstly, it wasn't a comment, it was a threat to kill ABC's ability to broadcast by the person with power to revoke their license. There's a difference.
Secondly, if you don't want to have the appearance of responsibility for your thumb on the scale, don't put your thumb on the scale. Don't just say that your thumb was one of many and it could've been anyone's pressure that caused the cancellation. There should be no confusion.
What on earth are you saying here? It worked. Obviously it "counts", it actually happened! The show was pulled from the air! You're saying that censorship isn't "technically censorship" if in some alternative universe Disney fought back and won? They didn't!
As for your opinion about the reach of the FCC's powers or the risk to broadcasters of regulatory action, clearly Bob Iger's lawyers disagree with you, and I'm going to bet they're rather better at their jobs than median HN commenters.
Edit: I'm going to call it here. The final reply below seems like 100% apoloigsm to me. The argument seems to be that somehow this is all a mistake, that Disney just got the wrong idea and torpedoed their own show by no fault of the government. And we all know that's not what happened. I don't know how to reply, so I won't.
Per PBS.org:
> ABC, which has aired “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” since 2003, did not immediately explain why it suspended the show on Wednesday. But its announcement came after both Nexstar and Sinclair said they would stop airing Kimmel’s show on their ABC-affiliated stations.
Until we get any indication that the FCC chair's comments were the source of the cancelation, I maintain that while what Carr said was stupid and bad, and what the FCC mostly does is stupid and bad, and while what Disney mostly does is stupid and bad, that this is not some new form of fascism.
It's clear you think I'm an idiot, so I'm quite sure my words will mean nothing to you, but please, hear this: A megacorporation took an action that has caused you to have strong animosity towards a fellow citizen based on perceived but not actual happenings. Resist the urge to be pissed off. I will happily march with you when and if the federal government actually attacks freedom of speech.
What about political incentives? The conservative media sphere was falling over themselves to rush to label the shooter before any evidence or even a statement of "ideology" was given by the Utah gov, such that the WSJ posted and retracted an article about how the shooter was trans. An observation of that was what got Kimmel turned off the air. It wasn't what the Utah gov eventually said, it was all that had taken place before then.
> And, if you notice that it's not even clear the FCC took any action, that it was actually ABC's distributors who caused the ruckus
What if the chair caused the ruckus with the distributors by making public comment and explicitly threatening to pull ABC's status, on a timeline before the distributor made the call? Why is this explicit threat of removal, not just taken against the show, but against the entire network, not considered an action?
Curious as to whether you've revisited this (surprisingly strongly-held) prior given todays reporting: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/no-evide...
Was it really though? Paraphrased, Kimmel said that the killer was a republican. He had a republican background, but it didn't motivate the killing which didn't seem to have any particular ideology beyond (maybe) trans identity politics and/or edgelord memery. So yeah, that was wrong.
But if that's "irresponsible and inflammatory", then isn't it equally so to blame "democrats" or "the left", also groups with which Robinson has no documented affiliation? And we can all agree that this is happening pervasively on the right, at all levels.
The double standard here seems troublesome to me, and likely deliberate. Which, I'll add, what actually the point Kimmel was trying to make.
> now I get to do 3 hours of reading to say "it never really existed in broadcast television and also yes, this is bad, but not nearly as bad as you think" and boom now I'm the fascist
You're not a fascist, but you do seem to be sort of an apologist. Doesn't the linked article directly refute the "not nearly as bad as you think" bit? It's happening again!