{"id":153773,"date":"2025-09-22T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153773\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:20:08","slug":"whoopi-goldberg-and-the-view-address-jimmy-kimmel-suspension-and-slam-attacks-on-free-speech-no-one-silences-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153773\/","title":{"rendered":"Whoopi Goldberg and \u2018The View\u2019 Address Jimmy Kimmel Suspension and Slam Attacks on Free Speech: \u2018No One Silences Us\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After two episodes of staying silent<\/a> on the matter, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View\u201d have finally commented on Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s suspension by the network. Fans had been theorizing amid their silence that the hosts were instructed by their parent company not to discuss Kimmel\u2019s suspension. During the Monday, Sept. 22 episode of \u201cThe View,\u201d Goldberg opened the show by saying: , \u201cDid y\u2019all really think we weren\u2019t going to talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? No one silences us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the news broke last week about Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s suspension, we took a breath to see if Jimmy was going to say anything about it first,\u201d Goldberg added. \u201cYou cannot like a show and it can go off the air. Someone can say something they shouldn\u2019t and get taken off the air. But the government cannot apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Variety<\/p>\n

Ana Navarro added: \u201cI don\u2019t understand how in this country, where the First Amendment was made to the Constitution to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of speech, how the government itself is using its weight and power to bully and scare people into silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment is the first\u00a0for a reason, because you need to\u00a0be able to hold those in power\u00a0accountable,\u201d Alyssa Farah Griffin said.<\/p>\n

Goldberg ended with a message of equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about freedom of speech a lot because we are always in somebody\u2019s mess because somebody has decided that we have said something that\u2019s offensive,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we fight for everybody\u2019s right to have freedom of speech because it means my speech is free, it means your speech is free.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sept. 18, the day after ABC announced Kimmel\u2019s suspension, FCC chairman Brendan Carr suggested the FCC look into \u201cThe View\u201d as well. The hosts\u2019 silence on the matter during the next day\u2019s episode only confounded fans more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at these other TV shows, what\u2019s interesting is the FCC does have a rule called the equal opportunity rule. But there\u2019s an exception to that rule called the bona fide news exception, which means if you are a bona fide news program, you don\u2019t have to abide by the equal opportunity rule.\u201d Carr said on a radio show. \u201cOver the years, the FCC has developed a body of case law on that and has suggested that most of these late night shows, other than\u00a0\u2018SNL,\u2019 are bona fide news programs. Potentially I would assume you can make the argument that\u00a0\u2018The View\u2019\u00a0is a bona fide news show, but I\u2019m not so sure about that, and I think it\u2019s worthwhile to have the FCC look into whether\u00a0\u2018The View\u2019\u00a0and some of the programs that you have still qualify as bona fide news programs and therefore exempt from the equal opportunity regime that Congress has put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike the hosts of \u201cThe View,\u201d many non-ABC television hosts were quick to condemn Kimmel\u2019s suspension. Stephen Colbert called the decision <\/a>\u201cblatant censorship\u201d to appease Donald Trump, while Jimmy Fallon expressed his desire<\/a> for Kimmel to return to air and vowed never to stop making Trump jokes even if there are fears it will get \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d censored.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is misery,\u201d David Letterman said when asked<\/a> about Kimmel\u2019s suspension. \u201cI feel bad about this. We see where this is all going, correct? It\u2019s managed media. And it\u2019s no good. It\u2019s silly. It\u2019s ridiculous. And you can\u2019t go around firing somebody because you\u2019re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That\u2019s just not how this works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard Stern announced he canceled<\/a> his Disney+ subscription because of ABC\u2019s decision to yank Kimmel off the air and explained: \u201cI just know when the government begins to interfere, when the government says, \u2018I\u2019m not pleased with you, so we\u2019re gonna orchestrate a way to silence you,\u2019 it\u2019s the wrong direction for our country\u2026 I\u2019m canceling my Disney+. I\u2019m trying to say with the pocketbook that I do not support what they\u2019re doing with Jimmy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel remains off the air as of the morning of Monday, Sept. 22.<\/p>\n

Best of Variety<\/p>\n

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After two episodes of staying silent on the matter, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,12389,10202,10203,64124,70432,391,56,54,55,70504],"class_list":["post-153773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-jimmy-fallon","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-suspension","tag-the-view","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-whoopi-goldberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}