Kimmel makes the case for free speech

After a few days in politically-induced time out that felt like a decade, Jimmy Kimmel made a triumphant return to late night TV on Tuesday. “I’m not sure who had a weirder 48 hours,” he said. “Me, or the CEO of Tylenol.” Given that Tylenol is a brand name and has no actual CEO, let’s say Kimmel, who Disney/ABC pulled off the air last week under political pressure from station ownership and the chairman of the FCC after he made a bad-taste joke about Charlie Kirk’s assassin. 

Kimmel suddenly became the most famous man in America not named Donald Trump, and his audience met his return with a roaring standing ovation, chanting “Jimmy! Jimmy! Jimmy!” He quickly delivered a tearful apology to the friends, family, and devotees of Charlie Kirk and an equally tearful praise of Erika Kirk’s astonishing forgiveness of her husband’s assassin. Kimmel said he believes in the teachings of Jesus, and that Erika Kirk’s words “touched me deeply.”

But the majority of Kimmel’s opening monologue was a full-throated defense of himself, and of freedom of speech. He joked that he’d received a job offer from Germany. “This country has become so authoritarian that the Germans are offering me a job,” he said. 

He thanked Republicans like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Rand Paul who stood up for him. “People who I never would have imagined… said something very beautiful on my behalf… I don’t agree with many of those people on most subjects. Some of the things they say even make me want to throw up. It takes courage for them to speak out against this administration, and they did. And they deserve credit for it.”

Specifically, he singled out Ted Cruz, who really went to bat for Kimmel in the last week. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before but Ted Cruz is right,” Kimmel said. “If Ted Cruz can’t speak freely then he can’t cast spells on the Smurfs.”

Above all else, Kimmel, quite correctly, made one thing clear: “Our government cannot be allowed to control what we can and cannot say on television… This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

Meanwhile, the Donald was attacking on Truth Social. “I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back,” said the President of the United States about a late-night comedian. “The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his “talent” was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE.”

Kimmel had not yet seen this post. Even as Trump was ranting about him after an eventful day at the UN, Kimmel started taking digs at Trump, showing a clip where Trump said Kimmel had “no ratings.” 

“Well,” Kimmel smirked triumphantly. “I do tonight. He tried to cancel me, and he instead forced millions of people to watch my show. That backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein Files to distract from this.“

Kimmel pointed out that Sinclair and Nexstar, who own 20 percent of ABC affiliates, were currently keeping him off the air in Seattle, Portland, Washington, DC, and his wife’s hometown of St. Louis, “so I guess they’ll have to watch this on YouTube or whatever.”

He said “I never thought I’d be in a situation like this,” but the one thing he learned from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and other childhood heroes is that “silencing a comedian is un-American.”

After a commercial break, Kimmel aired a meh skit where Robert DeNiro played an anonymous tough-guy mob boss type who was now running the FCC. Those jokes didn’t really land, but then Kimmel got in some good jabs about Trump’s weird visit to the UN, calling him “Ramblestiltskin.” He had special fun with Trump’s press conference yesterday where the President went on an all-time rant against Tylenol. “Follow the medical advice of Donald Trump,” Kimmel said, “and you too can look like a glazed ham with deep vein thrombosis.”

Just like that, America was great again.