Trump floats axing licences for networks ‘against’ him
Dawn Chmielewski and Jonathan Allen |
US President Donald Trump is celebrating the suspension of talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel from the airwaves and has floated revoking the licences of television networks that are “against” him.
His remarks will inflame the debate over whether Trump and Republicans are infringing free speech as they seek to punish critics of murdered right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Trump, speaking during a state visit to Britain on Thursday, said Kimmel had been punished for saying “a horrible thing” about Kirk, who was a close political ally of the president.
Broadcaster ABC announced on Wednesday that it was yanking Jimmy Kimmel Live indefinitely.
Writers, performers, former US president Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats condemned Kimmel’s suspension as a capitulation to unconstitutional government pressure.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used his office and the courts to attack unflattering speech about him that he has called defamatory or false.
Kimmel’s suspension came after owners of local TV stations had said they would stop broadcasting his late-night show, and the nation’s top communications regulator threatened to investigate Kimmel’s commentary about Kirk.
Kimmel, a comedian who frequently lampoons Trump, said during his opening monologue on Monday that allies of Kirk were using his assassination to “score political points”.
Kirk, 31, was shot onstage at a university in Utah on September 10, where he was holding one of his frequent public debates with students over his political views.
Kimmel also mocked Trump’s responses to Kirk’s death: “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Trump said Kimmel was not talented, had bad ratings, and “said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk”.
“So, you know, you can call that free speech or not,” Trump said on Thursday.
“He was fired for lack of talent.”
ABC has not said it fired Kimmel, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Since Kirk’s murder, Kimmel is the most famous American to face professional blowback for comments condemned by conservatives as disrespectful of Kirk, alongside media figures, academics, teachers and corporate employees.
A 22-year-old technical college student and video game-enthusiast from Utah was charged with Kirk’s murder on Tuesday.
Prominent Democrats say Trump is assaulting free-speech rights guaranteed in the US Constitution’s First Amendment, while Republicans say they are fighting against “hate speech” that can spiral into violence.
Kirk’s death spurred an outpouring of grief among fans who saw him as a staunch advocate for public debate and conservative values, while others have challenged Kirk’s support for right-wing politics and Christian nationalism, and his derogatory comments about immigrants, Black people, leftists and transgender people.
Trump has long threatened to pull licences from television stations and pressured broadcasters to stop airing content he finds objectionable.
This week, he filed a $US15 billion ($A23 billion) defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.
Hours before Kimmel’s suspension, Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, urged local broadcasters to stop airing the show.
US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that Trump fire Carr, calling him one of America’s biggest threats to free speech.
Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, complained that he had read somewhere that television networks “were 97 per cent against me” and only gave him bad publicity.
“I would think maybe their licence should be taken away,” Trump said, although federal law prohibits the FCC from revoking a broadcaster’s licence for negative coverage or other speech disliked by the government.
“It will be up to Brendan Carr.”
Reuters
