John Oliver has voiced his concern for the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s show and his support of his fellow late-night TV host.<\/p>\n
On his HBO show Last Week Tonight, the comedian started by speaking about the shooting of Charlie Kirk. \u201cA person getting shot is tragic and a person getting shot for their ideas is horrifying, that is true no matter what their ideas are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Oliver quickly added: \u201cI also recognise that for many, especially those who were the target of Kirk\u2019s ideas, it has been hard to stay quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kimmel\u2019s remarks last week were focused on how the right was trying to use the death of Kirk to \u201cscore political points\u201d. Oliver said that after the fallout, \u201cit does seem like some are now willing to weaponise Kirk\u2019s death to do things they\u2019ve been wanting to do for years\u201d.<\/p>\n
He spoke of the \u201cshamelessly flimsy pretext\u201d used to suspend him and that \u201ceveryone knew the administration had it in for Kimmel\u201d.<\/p>\n
Despite mischaracterisation elsewhere, Oliver stressed that Kimmel\u2019s comments \u201cweren\u2019t about Kirk\u201d and \u201cmany struggled to pick the offensive line out of his monologue\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that \u201cKimmel didn\u2019t denigrate Charlie Kirk or make light of his killing\u201d but just spoke about how the right were desperate to weaponise \u201can argument that has aged pretty well given everything that\u2019s happened to Kimmel since\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The comments \u201cset off a firestorm\u201d and enraged Brendan Carr, FCC chair, and Nexstar, one of the largest owners of TV stations which then triggered his suspension by ABC.<\/p>\n
Nexstar owns 201 stations but was also trying to buy a company called Tegna to expand its reach, a deal which needed approval from the FCC. Another large company, Sinclair, announced it would not air Kimmel\u2019s show and even cited Carr\u2019s remarks in a statement.<\/p>\n
Carr used the internet to brag about the news and when asked about it by a CNN reporter, he sent a meme from The Office in response. \u201cOh very cool just when I thought this factory setting white man couldn\u2019t get any hotter,\u201d Oliver joked.<\/p>\n
Carr also went on TV to suggest it was a spontaneous grassroots movement from local broadcasters but Oliver reminded viewers that it was the result of sweeping decisions from two giant companies.<\/p>\n
He said the \u201csequence of events here could not be clearer\u201d and last week even saw Trump make the connection: \u201cProbably not something you should say out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
But while Ted Cruz, a Republican Texas senator, said he was \u201cthrilled\u201d, he also added that it was a worrying assault on free speech.<\/p>\n
Oliver reminded viewers that \u201cKimmel is by no means the first casualty in Trump\u2019s attack on free speech\u201d but \u201cthis Kimmel situation does feel like a turning point and not because comedians are important but because we are not\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the \u201cfirst amendment is absolutely critical in this country\u201d and there are \u201cchilling precedents all over the world\u201d with countries like Hungary and Russia showing what happens when dictators target comedians on TV.<\/p>\n
While the \u201ceasier path for them is to keep him off the air and keep the administration off their back\u201d, he stressed that if this ends up in court, Disney would probably win against the administration.<\/p>\n
Oliver said that Disney needs to \u201cstand by Kimmel and his staff\u201d and those at home should exert pressure by cancelling Disney+ and Hulu.<\/p>\n
He said that Disney CEO Bob Iger will be remembered as one of the \u201ccowards who definitely knew better but still let things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cGiving the bully your lunch money doesn\u2019t make him go away, it just makes him come back hungrier each time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver has voiced his concern for the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s show and his support of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-161424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}