Historically, one of the best ways to generate interest in what someone has to say is to not allow them to say it.
Trump and his handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may not have set out to create a built-in, eager audience for Jimmy Kimmel content when they allegedly pressured ABC to yank his show off the air last week, but that’s just what they did.
Kimmel knew he’d be speaking to far more viewers than usual during last night’s comeback episode, and he did not squander the opportunity. Instead, he delivered a bold yet measured once-in-a-lifetime monologue that reached across the aisle while punching up at those in power.
At one point during his remarkable monologue, the host directly commented on the size of his new audience. He played a clip of Trump gloating over ABC’s decision to pull him off the air, claiming Kimmel would be easy to replace because “he had no ratings.”
“Well, tonight I do,” Kimmel retorted.
Indeed, he did. Although the linear TV ratings are not in yet—and will likely be skewed by the fact that local broadcasting companies Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair refused to carry the show in several major markets, including Washington, D.C.—the YouTube clip for Kimmel’s opening monologue earned seven million views in a matter of hours and was up to 10 million as of this writing.
“He tried his best to cancel me—instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show,” Kimmel continued. “He might have to release the Epstein files to distract from this.”
Kimmel and his writers understood the assignment
More important than the size of the audience for last night’s episode was its breadth.
Kimmel and his writers understood that this first monologue back from the brink of cancellation would reel in not only the usual fans and a huge batch of lapsed supporters, but also a hate-watching MAGA contingent, and curious viewers of all ideological stripes.
Everyone wanted to know: Would it be a chastened Kimmel playing nice? An undeterred Kimmel talking righteous trash? Would he feature a star-studded circle of supporters like Stephen Colbert recently did in his first show after CBS announced his cancellation?
Much like the general state of affairs in 2025, no outcome seemed off the table.
What viewers might not have expected, though, is what they ended up getting: a deeply nuanced and heartfelt plea for unity, beneath the more-expected surface layer of scathing, hilarious jokes at this administration’s expense.
The ostensible reason that FCC chair Brendan Carr appeared to urge broadcasters to dump Kimmel last week was a single sentence the host uttered, which many interpreted as suggesting that Charlie Kirk’s murderer was aligned with MAGA. Kimmel had reportedly meant to address this misconception last week, before his show was pulled.
Last night, he finally did.
“It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man,” he said, tearing up. “I don’t think there’s anything funny about it . . . Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that, to some, it felt either ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger. I get why you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance I’d have felt the same way.”
Kimmel may not have apologized for his previous words, but he did something rarer and arguably more powerful: He validated the people genuinely outraged by them. He cut right through the film of polarization that envelops every current event but especially those in the weeks since Kirk’s murder, and emphasized both sides’ shared humanity.
No wonder he teared up again nearly 10 minutes later, while recalling Erika Kirk’s magnanimous forgiveness of her husband’s killer during Kirk’s memorial service over the weekend.
Speaking truth to power—with a smile
Though surrounded by savage clowning on Carr and Trump, Kimmel’s comments about Kirk were so considered and seemingly genuine, they made the campaign to silence him look even more cynical and malicious in contrast. Even if Kimmel were only pretending to be so affected by the murder of a young father with whom he vehemently disagreed, well, at least he’s incredible at pretending.
Trump, meanwhile, gives away the game every time he speaks about Kimmel’s suspension. Around the time the show aired last night, the president sent out a furious Truth Social post, threatening to “test ABC” on whether keeping Kimmel on the air amounts to a “major illegal Campaign Contribution” to Democrats.
He seemingly forgot to mention that the push to get rid of Kimmel, which he hinted at as far back as July, was supposed to be on behalf of Charlie Kirk.
Some of the most scathing material in Kimmel’s monologue was about the apparent efforts to use Kirk’s murder as a means to censor dissenting voices—be they journalists, professors, or talk show hosts—and the host deftly manages to flip those efforts into a further call for unity.
The government push to remove a comedian from television seemed to be so blatant, after all, that it attracted support from unlikely allies such as Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Candace Owens. Kimmel wisely paints his suspension with patriotism, calling the effort “anti-American,” and grounds it in the lineage of previously censored comedians like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin.
“Maybe the silver lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on and maybe we’ll even find another one,” he says near the end of his monologue. “Maybe we can get a little bit closer together. We do agree on a lot of things. We agree on keeping our children safe from guns, on reproductive rights for women, social security, affordable health care, pediatric cancer research. These are all things that most Americans support. Let’s stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.”
Though not every view Kimmel nodded toward is shared by all Americans, his plea for finding common ground capped off an incisive, inclusive monologue that will likely earn him grudging kudos from people who disagree with him.
After the monologue, Kimmel switched gears and went back to doing what he normally does: flexing his First Amendment-protected freedom to make fun of some other things the president recently did.
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