Glenn Beck’s surprising take on Jimmy Kimmel

On Wednesday, September 18, ABC announced the network’s decision to indefinitely suspend "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" following host Jimmy Kimmel's controversial comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination on September 10.

"We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” he said on the show’s September 16 episode.

The hateful and inaccurate comment drew sharp criticism from FCC Chair Brendan Carr and led major affiliates Nexstar and Sinclair to pre-empt the show.

Of course, the left is crying government overreach, claiming Carr forced the show’s suspension through coercion and threats, but Glenn Beck, who knows Carr personally, says he highly doubts that’s true.

“I want you to know I am not for government involvement in any of this. Government should not be involved in this at all,” he clarifies.

And yet he can’t dismiss the glaring irony of liberals’ cries of government censorship when they ignored and even supported Democrat administrations, specifically Biden's and Obama's, quietly pressuring social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to censor conservative voices.

These Democrat administrations were “flexing their muscles all the time, making quiet threats to companies all the time, but yeah, apparently [liberals] don't see that,” he scoffs.

The left didn’t care about protecting free speech when it was Tucker Carlson’s show — rated number two in all of cable news at the time — that was ripped off air at the behest of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who accused the Fox News anchor of "incitement of violence" in the lead-up to the January 6 Capitol events. The socialist Democrat even bragged that it was her pressure campaign that influenced Fox’s decision to part ways with Carlson. “Deplatforming works and it is important. Good things can happen,” she boasted.

But now that there’s suspicion that a Trump administration might have played a role in a show’s suspension, liberals are suddenly fretting over government overreach?

“Now, you could say that maybe these companies are afraid of Donald Trump. Well, I will tell you that ABC should be afraid,” says Glenn, citing the $16 million defamation settlement that Trump won against ABC News over George Stephanopoulos falsely claiming Trump was found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case — a costly lesson that likely drove ABC to suspend Kimmel’s show to avoid another legal blow.

Lawsuits like this, Glenn argues, are how broadcasters like Kimmel should be held accountable — not through government censorship, but through courts.

But there’s no doubt Kimmel has earned his current predicament.

Not only was his comment about Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, being MAGA “not comedy,” it was a “lie,” says Glenn, adding that the blame isn’t just on Kimmel but on ABC as a whole, since surely the show’s script was seen by many eyes prior to airing.

More than ever, it’s clear that ABC is “agenda-driven,” he says.

But even so, “the FCC should not be involved in this,” he reiterates. “Let the grassroots market work itself out, not these giant organizations that are funded with our tax dollars.”

To hear more of Glenn’s commentary, watch the episode above.

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