Whoopi Goldberg kicked off today’s episode of ABC’s The View by addressing the elephant in the room: “Did y’all really think we weren’t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.”
The View drew speculation from viewers and commentators last week when the daytime talker failed to address the suspension by ABC of Kimmel’s late-night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! (Friday’s episode was taped on Thursday.)
Watch the video below.
Today, Goldberg explained the show’s decision last week. “When the news broke last week about Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension, we took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first.” She added that the show took the same approach when news of the upcoming cancellation of CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
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Goldberg then slammed the FCC’s apparent role in Kimmel’s suspension. “Someone can say something they shouldn’t and get taken off the air,” she said, “but the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.”
Goldberg added: “We talk about freedom of speech a lot because we are always in somebody’s mess because somebody has decided that we have said something that’s offensive. But we fight for everybody’s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.”
Co-host Ana Navarro started her comments on the Kimmel controversy by thanking View viewers for “demanding truth and courage from us. You deserve it.” She then decried the use of Charlie Kirk to silence debate when Kirk himself was a free speech advocate.
“I have to tell you this,” Navarro continued. “I lived through a right-wing dictatorship in Nicaragua and I lived through a left-wing dictatorship in Nicaragua. This is what dictators and authoritarians do. It does not matter the ideology. At first, they come with it for the people with big platforms, at first the silence the press, but then they come for all of us because their intent is to scare us into silence and self-censorship.”
The View‘s conservative voice, Alyssa Farah Griffin, said, “The First Amendment is the first for a reason, because you need to be able to hold those in power accountable.”
Following last week’s news of the Kimmel suspension, FCC chairman Brendan Carr said his agency should investigate whether The View is exempt from FCC’s equal opportunity or equal-time rule.
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