“DEEPLY Unconstitutional And Immoral!” Jimmy Kimmel Sparks Free Speech Debate | With Bill O’Reilly

25:23I can't speak for anyone but myself, so I don't know about what draconian measures people would ask for. I certainly wouldn't support that. But Jimmy Kimmel got fired, according to the Wall Street Journal and The Hollywood Reporter, because he refused to apologize. He wasn't planning on apologizing. He, in fact, was planning on furthering the commentary, criticizing MAGA for twisting his words. According to the Wall Street Journal, the executives approached him on his side saying they were actually going to defend him, but the advertisers and the affiliates were upset over the comments that he made portraying the assassin as a MAGA guy.

25:53When Jimmy Kimmel expressed his desire to further that line that he had pressed the day before, that's when they had a private meeting and decided to pull his show. So I do believe the FCC comments, obviously played a role. I think it was multifaceted. But I've said this since cancel culture was more in the news with many on the left getting people canceled on the right. If you own a company and someone says something objectionable, which threatens the existence of your company, I honestly, I don't care if that person gets fired. If someone at my company was going on social media and posting abhorrent racist things, I'd fire them too.

26:28The issue with cancel culture is that people were being fired for things that were not objectionable. There was a Netflix executive who got fired for simply describing the racial slurs they would not allow on Netflix. Papa John got fired and removed from his company, named stripped from universities, for lamenting the fact that the colonel used a racial slur and got away with it, and there was no criticism. In fact, in one instance, a NASCAR driver lost sponsorship because his father used a racial slur in the 80s. That's cancel culture. Pulling Sarah Silverman off a movie because 10 years ago she did a black face joke, that's cancel culture.

27:01Bud Light facing a massive sales backlash and having their beer pulled from stores and bars, Target losing customers and being criticized. This is consumer backlash. So I certainly don't think a teacher who criticizes Charlie Kirk should get fired. What I will add on top of this is the real reason stated by the reporting from various outlets left and right was that Jimmy Kimmel was going to continue that line the next day. And that caused concern they would lose more advertisers at a time when Jimmy Kimmel's ratings are down 43 % and he's costing them millions of dollars. So if the FCC is to come out and say, we are going to get you taken off the air, that's a bad thing.

27:38But I think it's important that we discuss the context around when a business has a right to say you are threatening the existence of our company.

27:45Piers Morgan:Adam Freeland, I interviewed Jay Leno about a year and a half ago and he was really interesting about... Wow. Yeah, it was actually great. I went to his car garage in LA. We had a great few hours. I loved it. What I liked about what he said was, you know, he believed in, like, teasing and gently mocking all politicians from all sides. And he talked about the kind of real golden period of Johnny Carson. Nobody knew Johnny Carson's politics at all. And yet, if you've watched late-night comedy in America in the last 10 years, since Trump became a politician, all of them, Almost to... I mean, they're all middle-aged white guys, which always makes me laugh when you think about the diversity push which never seemed to attack late-night comedy.

28:31Piers Morgan:But they all, to me, developed an increasing loathing of Trump, which began to really distort what their actual job was, to make Americans laugh late at night. I stopped watching them quite a long time ago. I could not watch it. Jimmy Fallon, I would kind of keep out of this. He's always been a lighter touch, but I think Kimmel and I think Colbert in particular, they really went hard in the anti-Trump rhetoric. The view doesn't have alternate views, has one view. They all hate Trump. They all came out in black funereal clothes after he won again. And I don't think these serve their viewers and I don't think they serve their companies.

29:14Piers Morgan:But I also feel uneasy, as Kat said, about the FCC poking its nose publicly into making not even veil threats, but direct threats, that if ABC Disney didn't take action against Kimmel, then they were going to pay the consequences. So where do you sit with all this? Introducing Meta Glasses. Hey, Meta, any last minute tables for two tonight? Sure. There's a great Italian restaurant 15 minutes away. Hey, Meta, where's the nearest flower shop? Five minutes away, straight down Broadway, past the bodega. Their lilies are trending on Instagram. Just saying. Hey Meta, am I forgetting anything else? How about setting a calendar reminder for next year?

30:00Meta Glasses, available in more than 20 styles. Listen, I'm new to your audience, so just to introduce myself, I am a tell-it-like-it-is comedian. And, you know, no one's safe from my jokes, be it bratty kids, celebrities, politicians, people that just walked by, they're all fair game. But it is still deeply unconstitutional and immoral for the president to silence his enemies. But I think what's important now, especially because it's so crazy right now, is that we zoom out as like people, like human beings. And like there's a lot of kind of empathy being expressed towards Kimmel right now. But where is the empathy for Donald Trump?

30:47Certainly what it seems like to me is that he feels like he's been bullied. And I've been a victim of bullying my entire life. And still, I am regularly. I'm on the Internet. But I've always said to my bullies, like, while it's disrespectful, rude, hurtful for them to be saying that, I support their constitutional right to be saying things about me that aren't true. So, you know, previous Democratic administrations have gotten the same treatment from conservative comics like Dennis Miller, Michael Richards, Kill Tony. I'm sure a lot of that caused Joe Biden a lot of pain. But never were their constitutional rights violated by the executive branch of the government.

31:38And I think that is what the clear difference is here. And I think for all of us as a culture, we have to ask ourselves, is the president suffering right now from being made fun of? And the truth is this, like 30 percent of Americans suffer from depression and there's a stigma. And if that is indeed true, like, he should feel equipped to get help. And it is a public risk.

32:08Piers Morgan:I detect a slight sarcasm to your tone. I'm not. I'm not. No, no. Here's the point I've made. I don't think Trump feels bullied or hurt or any of those things. I think what he feels... So what? Here's what I think he feels. He actually spelled it out in the last few days. There's no doubt, as he said, that about 99 % of all the coverage of Trump on all these late-night shows and The View and all these other, you know, mainstream media shows has been Trump bashing. It's never been that percentage historically with anybody else. It was never like that with Obama. It wasn't like it with Reagan. It wasn't like it with Clinton.

32:42Piers Morgan:It's never been so skewed. I think Donald Trump brings a lot of it on himself, but I also think there's no doubt, no-one can argue to me sensibly, that Trump has not had a more relentlessly vicious negative treatment from shows that used to be much more bipartisan in their mockery than Trump. So I think all these things can be true. And he also comes from television, right? And so it's something that he pays close attention to. Yeah. Ratings, he talks about, they're being very unfair to me, unfair treatment. This is something that he's locked in on constantly. So, I mean, to some extent, if these are low-rated shows that are taking jabs at him, vicious jabs sometimes, that doesn't really pose much of a threat to his power if not a lot of people are watching them.

33:35But for him, it's something that he's, like, zoned in on, perhaps. And that's what happened with Jim.

33:41Piers Morgan:Yeah, I mean, I think it's complicated with Jimmy Kimmel. John, let me bring you in here. You said the Kimmel suspension shows how brittle, unmanly and frightened the Trump White House is. I would add that they're angry about the way they've been treated for years by the mainstream media, rightly or wrongly, and they're vengeful and they're thoroughly enjoying Jimmy Kimmel, one of their most ardent protagonists, getting his comeuppance, which is a kind of human reaction you would not, you know, find surprising in someone like Trump. Again, those things can all be true. Yeah, I mean, from your point of view, I mean, I remember, for example, here's an example of cancel culture at its worst, where I don't remember anyone on the Liberal side coming to her aid.

34:26Piers Morgan:I got bounced out of my job hosting Good Morning Britain for disbelieving Meghan Markle in her Oprah Winfrey interview. And it made a lot of headlines. I said, I don't believe it. And nobody raced to my defence, by the way, on the Liberal left, even though I've always identified as a Liberal kind of guy myself. But then a worse thing happened. You know, I was fine about it. I was tired of getting out of bed that early anyway. Sharon Osbourne was on The Talk on CBS, and she got jumped by Cheryl Underwood, who was one of her co-panelists, who was an African-American woman, who accused her of supporting a racist.

35:04Piers Morgan:And Sharon said, well, what's he said that's racist? And Cheryl Underwood couldn't actually explain. She sort of went on a long tangent about how it's kind of, you know, if you say things a certain way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, obviously, I'd said nothing racist. Referring to whom, Piers? I'm sorry, referring to whom? Well, Cheryl Lunderwood was saying that I had been racist. She was inferring I'd said racist things about Meghan Markle, which I hadn't at all. And no one, everyone knew I hadn't. But because Sharon... I'm sorry. Because Sharon said, well, it's fine, but I was annoyed for Sharon.

35:34Piers Morgan:Here's what happened. Nobody supported Sharon. She got suspended. She again got bullied into making a tearful apology. sort of begging for mercy, really, over nothing. She'd done nothing wrong other than show me support as a friend. We used to work together on America's Got Talent. And then she got fired anyway. But what I remember most of all about it, nobody on the liberal left gave a damn that Sharon Osbourne's career got ruined in that way on American television, simply for saying that I hadn't said racist things when I hadn't. So there's a lot of double standards about all this. It's like, depending who you are...

36:10Piers Morgan:Tucker Carlson, I showed earlier with Bill O 'Reilly a clip of Jimmy Kimmel gleefully celebrating Tucker Carlson being fired, gleefully celebrating Roseanne Barr being fired from ABC and so on. So it's interesting to me to see who people race to defend when it comes to free speech. There's a lot of hypocrisy. What do you think? If I may, Roseanne was fired by a private corporation for making racist comments that would hurt that corporation's bottom line. and Tucker Carlson was fired for repeated lies that cost his private corporation three quarters of a billion dollars. They were not fired because of abuse of power, which is the case here.

36:49But is it the case here?

36:51Piers Morgan:Or could it be that Kimmel did exactly what you've just articulated? He was hitting his company on the bottom line. Local TV station owners were pulling the plug. They were saying, we don't want to air him. In other words, is it not the same thing? But because he's a liberal darling left guy, EVERYONE IS FRAMING IT IN A DIFFERENT WAY. NO, THIS WAS GOVERNMENT, THIS WAS ABUSE OF POWER. THIS WAS BRENDAN CARR SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC WHICH WAS VERY STUPID OF HIM BECAUSE IT'S GOING TO MAKE SURE THIS ISSUE NEVER GOES AWAY. AT LEAST WITH COHBERE, THEY KEPT THIS ON THE DOWN LOW. IF YOU ACTUALLY LOOK AT KIMMEL'S COMMENTS, I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND WHY THERE HASN'T BEEN A MORE FORCEFUL DEFENSE MOUNTED.

37:29HE SAID THAT MAGA FOLKS SPENT THE WEEKEND TRYING TO ASSERT THAT THIS KILLER WAS NOT ONE OF theirs and then said they spent the weekend trying to blame everybody else. That's really a very fair comment. It was in no way besmirching Mr. Kirk or the grief that many people were feeling. There's been a lot of exploitation over this and whenever anything of this kind of violence happens, it always brings out the best in some people and the worst in others and many of us on the left and right will exploit any tragedy to go ahead and hate on the people we already hate. In this case, however, this was going to happen no matter what and Brendan Carr has always envisioned this.

38:03He as an architect of Project 2025. These other cases you talk about are private corporations. And look, this administration has taken a lot of pleasure in a lot of Americans losing their job. They take delight in it. And there's a lot of talented people who work on this show that I hope will not be losing their jobs because, you know, Bob Iger is negotiating heavily with Next Star right now to try to put a happy ending on all this because Bob Iger doesn't want champion of censorship to be stapled to his obituary when he leaves. When Michael Eisner is the voice of morality against Bob Iger. My God, what have we come to?

38:35Kimmel's going to be fine. He'll find a job somewhere, as will Colbert. They're very, very wealthy. But this is something that's unprecedented. We haven't seen the government doing this. And in both cases, they were contingent on bribes. This is more corruption that we're all used to in this country. This was about putting a merger through. Bob Iger was looking at the stock price. He wanted to make this merger go through, and he made the Kimmel problem go away because he was hinted to do that by the government. This is self-cancellation by intimidation. It's grotesquely against the First Amendment.

39:06And these guys are not going to look good in the history books for doing it.

39:11Piers Morgan:Well, joining me now is the editor-in-chief of Semaphore and host of the Mixed Signals podcast, Ben Smith. Ben, great to have you on Uncensored. Your debut, I think. Thank you for, I believe it is. Very exciting moment. With Adam Friedland, no less. Yes, exactly. Ben, what do you mean? I mean, John Fugusang who just made a pretty full throttle attack on the way the Trump administration, as he sees it, is flexing its muscles against media companies to get rid of critics and so on. Do you see it that way, or is it a little bit more complicated? You know, I talked to Brendan Carr, actually, about this in February, because I think the thing that John was saying that I think most people in our world would say is that the biggest threat to free speech in the United States is the government.

39:57That's why the First Amendment restricts the government not private actors. And that's, you know, the kind of longstanding consensus view. And it really is not how the Trump administration sees the world. And when I, when I, and when I talked to Carr, I kind of put that to him. Don't you think, obviously, the primary threat to speech in the United States is you, the government always has been. And he said, no, he think that the biggest threat to free speech was the big social media companies. And I think the reality is that the Trump administration, starting with Trump himself, like feel that very, very personally.

40:25There are people who's, in some cases, they're kind of formative. Political experiences are getting tossed off, Twitter and Facebook. For Trump, certainly a very intense experience. And so I think when... I think, you know, setting aside the law here, setting aside the fact the First Amendment just literally does restrict the government, not private corporations, their view in a kind of intuitive way is that, look, those guys did that to us, and so we're going to do it to them.

40:51Piers Morgan:Right. And there's no doubt they did. I mean, I remember the same people screaming how unfair it is that Jimmy Kimmel has been suspended, screaming their glee at Trump being thrown off Facebook and Twitter and the rest of them and seeing no apparent contradiction there. Yeah, I mean, there's, I think, a broad consensus in the United States, probably everywhere, that we would like to see our opponent's speech smashed while ours, but our friends should be allowed to say whatever they want. Yeah. And it turns out the constituency for actually letting your enemies say things you hate and defending that is pretty small, although admirable.

41:29Piers Morgan:Is there another thing going on here with the downfall of Stephen Colbert and now Jimmy Kimmel, that actually the reality, when you look at the numbers they were getting watching their show, have been dwindling now for many, many years. The costs are very high. You're seeing many people now decamping from mainstream media. I'm one of them, right? going into the world of YouTube, which is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world, the fastest-growing for watching stuff. But actually, these guys, in a way, are kind of... They're the modern-day dinosaurs who were still trying to create content, which was becoming increasingly unpopular, and therefore, because they're so expensive, that their company executives in charge of their shows are making calculated, ruthless decisions using a moment, if you like, as an excuse to do what they maybe want to do anyway?

42:26Piers Morgan:Yeah, I think it might be a little bit the opposite. I don't think that the... I don't think Disney thinks it's, like, a nice excuse to look like they're caving to political pressure. They caved to political pressure in this case, though, because this isn't such a good business. I mean, broadly, the kind of irony here is the part of media that Brendan Carr regulates, that the federal government regulates, is the weak, dying part, is the part that's rooted fundamentally in broadcast television, which has been rolled up by these no-name affiliate companies like Tegna that we were all learning about over the last week because that's where the pressure point is.

42:57What's so strange is that Donald Trump won on the back of understanding that there was this really vibrant new media world, but his kind of personal obsession, his vendettas, are still with people like Jimmy Kimmel, people like Stephen Colbert, who are obviously, in some sense, part of the past.

43:14Piers Morgan:Trump is very litigious and has been using that tendency very aggressively against a lot of media companies, most of whom have been caving and paying him a lot of money. We're seeing the same thing with universities and so on. What do you think about that? I mean, is that all part of crossing a line of government interference or is it actually a bit of moral cowardice by the media companies in paying the money? I mean, the answer to that question is yes. But, you know, what is so interesting is that Trump and his lawyer, Boris Epstein, have kind of found a way to use the law to pressure these companies and force them to pay these huge amounts of money, basically on the premise that this thing is never going to go to court.

44:01Right. And the reason is these companies are huge conglomerates. They have interests here, they have interests there. And, you know, they're essentially scared that federal regulatory agencies will over on this side of the map, you know, stop their mergers, mess with their broadcast licenses. And so if they can pay some money over here, whatever, call it a settlement in a lawsuit, to make these things go away or take a little pressure off here, they'll do it. And that's basically the system that's been developed. I mean, these are sort of new channels for donations to the Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg presidential library.

44:33Piers Morgan:Do you think there's any way back for Kimmel at ABC? Are we going to see that show back on air? I mean, I think this is the most anybody's talked about Jimmy Kimmel in quite a while. I saw that Midas Touch, which is this kind of dominant left-wing YouTube channel, is trying to... We reported today that they're trying to hire Jimmy Kimmel to go on their air. So, you know, I'm sure he'll be hearing from Jimmy Kimmel again. Ben Smith, great to have you. Don't leave us alone next time. Thanks for having me, Pierce. Very exciting for me. Really good to talk to you. Thank you very much. We're joining the panel now as comedian Jeff Dye, who says attempts to use Kirk's past comments against him is truly sick.

45:11Piers Morgan:All right, Jeff, welcome to Uncensored. Why truly sick?

45:18Well, I think that you can find me to be a hypocrite on this subject all week online, I will admit, because I react in a lot of feelings about these kind of things. I'm a comedian and I'm not as educated as your other guests about the FCC or conglomerates or any of these things. I'm a comedian. I JUST MEAN I DIDN'T KNOW AS MANY THINGS AS THESE OTHER THINGS. AND MY FEELING WAS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN INSANE IF ANYONE MADE A CRACK OR A MONOLOGUE RIFT ABOUT GEORGE FLOYD WHILE PEOPLE WERE INITIALLY KIND OF HURTING ABOUT IT. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN KIND OF A STRANGE THING. THAT WEEK WAS A WEEK OF EVERYONE GOING, HEY, SOMETHING PRETTY SERIOUS HAPPENED AND WE NEED TO like be kind of, you know, maybe maybe pause a little bit on the commentary or pause a little bit on the jokes.

46:12It would have been absolutely insane. And I know that the goal of these companies is to keep everyone happy, but you especially have to keep the people happy that give you money. And the people that give you money are probably going to have political opinions and different things. And so I think that that's kind of what happened here. The people that are giving money to Jimmy Kimmel thought that it was a little insensitive and they wanted him to apologize and he refused to and they said, hey, we're going to have to do the thing that a lot of companies do and cut you loose. Now, to speak to the FCC and all those other things that I'm not as educated about, maybe that makes me a hypocrite.

46:47Piers Morgan:Well, I think a lot of things can be true at once. I mean, Captain, it may well be that ultimately the FCC quotes from Brendan Carr, utterly inappropriate, very threatening, quite mafioso, as Ted Cruz said. But it may be that that wasn't in the end, the determining factor. We don't really know. It may be that ABC and Disney just concluded the heat, the commercial heat, from the fallout of what he said. And I actually think that's a really good point by Jeff Dyer. You know, if you had been on air, if you'd been on air on Gutfeld in the week after George Floyd was murdered, I'm sure you were, but if you cracked a joke, it wasn't really even a joke.

47:26Piers Morgan:And that's why... It wasn't about... But that's why, Jeff, I mean, the point that John made, I've seen someone trying to explain how it wasn't the way it seemed. I haven't heard this from Jimmy Kimmel yet, but apparently he was trying to explain that. To me. He was just revealing that this is what the right were doing. But it wasn't a joke and it was crass, wasn't it? But to me, the one difference here is the FCC. You can point to whatever other example of any other comment, whether it's something that actually happened or whether it's a hypothetical, and it's still going to be a different situation because it's not a cancellation that happened in just a matter of hours after the FCC was using that threatening language.

48:06And you can talk all you want about the local stations pulling out, but Nexstar was looking for a merger. They're looking to get rich off this. They're going to do what the FCC says. If people would like to believe that's a coincidence, that's fine. I don't believe it's a coincidence when it's the one difference. When Jimmy Kimmel has been making these sorts of comments, jokes, some are jokes, some are just political commentary, going really hard against Trump, really hard against the right. And then the one thing that's really different this time is that just hours before the head of the FCC was threatening, that to me, that's what makes this different.

48:44And I'm not a Democrat. I'm not on the left. I'm not on the right either. I'm just an independent. And I'm a free speech advocate. And as a free speech advocate, I cannot imagine having any other take. But at least, at the very least, being able to understand how someone could possibly think that maybe this had something to do with it.

49:02Piers Morgan:Yeah, Tim Paul, I got to say, it's a persuasive argument that Kat makes. It's just not the reporting. Look, I certainly understand when Brendan Carr says... I don't believe everything I read in reporting. I think for myself. Indeed. So you make things up, I guess, because what I can only go off of is what the left and what did I make up, Tim? What did I make up? Everything I just said was factual. Now, You're going to accuse me of making things up? What did I make up? Yet you made up that the FCC had a direct impact on the... What did I make up? I didn't make up anything. Everything I said is what happened.

49:35And an assumption that I think is not unreasonable, but the official reporting from left-wing sources and right-wing sources, I mean the more mainstream ones, is that the executives were largely behind Jimmy Kimmel. Advertisers, as well as affiliates, took issue with the comments he made insinuating the assassin was somehow a Trump supporter, whether that was unintentional or otherwise. Jimmy Kimmel, as officially reported, did not want to apologize, didn't feel he needed to apologize, and wanted to further those comments, criticizing MAGA for twisting his words. If we are going to make the assumption the principal reason his show was taken off the air was Donald Trump and the FCC, that would be us speculating not going off the main reporting.

50:11And the only thing I've heard this whole time with even Ben Smith and everybody is the assumption that is true, despite the evidence suggesting it played a minimal role. So I think it's fine to assume that Brendan Carr saying that can be worrying to affiliates. However, if we're going to go off what the actual reporting says from liberal outlets and conservative outlets, Bob Iger, as well as other executives, asked Jimmy Kimmel to walk it back. And he said no. They said, OK, your show dropped 43 percent over one month. Maybe we shouldn't do this anymore.

50:39Piers Morgan:OK, Adam Friedland, Scott Galloway on the Pivot podcast said that Bob Iger would go down in media history as Neville Chamberlain in a cashmere sweater minus the dignity. OK. What do you think of that?

50:55People always use Neville Chamberlain as a historical reference. Also, by the way, yesterday was entirely on our manager's... It was entirely Arteta's fault. I just wanted to say... I'm too upset about that. Guys, can I just address this kerfuffle just now? Folks, both sides have been hypocrites, but it also means that both sides have been correct at a certain point, right? So what we need to do is make them be correct at the same time. Yes, who cares? At the end of the day, who cares? It's comedy, right? Hey, the president got really pissed off when Obama did the White House Correspondents Dinner.

51:39He takes it very seriously. You know, if you're at one of my shows and you're in the front row, you know, you're in the splash zone. You might get burned or the burn zone. Listen, guys, it's just comedy. It's not that important. You know what's more important? Like someone that is an air traffic controller. Comedians are like, the way they're being treated as the modern day philosophers and the most important people in society, it's dangerous. But Adam, isn't it because... State power is important. I think speech is extremely important. And also the joke had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk. Well, it did.

52:20Do people speak? It had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk. No, it did.

52:22Piers Morgan:First of all, I would say it wasn't a joke, right? It was a political statement. It wasn't. The joke was actually out of empathy for Charlie Kirk. By saying that Donald Trump didn't seem... He wasn't being sympathetic to his friend's death. The point he was making, he said that the MAGA right, effectively, had spent the whole weekend trying to make out this guy was not one of them. The clear inference... Both sides were. Well, the clear inference from that statement that he made is that he probably was one of them. That's what caused all the offence. Now, Jimmy Kimmel... No, it wasn't. Jimmy Kimmel has...

52:55Piers Morgan:Well, just to be clear, Jimmy Kimmel's briefed that that's not what he intended, in which case I would say it's incumbent on Jimmy Kimmel to come out and explain himself. At the moment, he's not given that explanation. Why? It's a joke. Well, because it wasn't a joke, was it? It's a joke. What he said was the truth. Sorry, John? The least funny thing in the world is when a comedian explains a joke, OK? But it wasn't a joke. He kills the crowd like being like, this is what I meant. It wasn't a joke. No, it's a freaking joke. Actually, it wasn't a joke. It was a setup to a joke about Donald Trump's callous indifference to the murder of Charlie Kirk, which is the bit that got the lap at the end of the beat.

53:30Piers Morgan:Yeah, but John, would you have said what Jimmy Kimmel said if you were on mainstream television and it was pre-recorded? Myself? Yeah. I mean, well, it's not whether I would have, it's would I have had the right to, and I would have without expecting to be fired. They wanted to fire Kimmel. You've got the right to, but would you have... They had plenty of chances to fire him. You've got the right to, but would you have said it yourself? I'd phrase it a bit differently. Don't have the right to. I'm on TV right now. I'm on TV right now, and I'm saying that Kimmel didn't say anything to besmirch Charlie Kirk.

53:57He didn't say anything that wasn't the truth. He made a couple of statements as a setup for his joke about Trump's callous response to a question about Charlie Kirk's murder. He said that MAGA was trying desperately to prove this guy wasn't one of theirs. That's true. He didn't say he's MAGA. He didn't even say he's a white guy from a white state raised by a MAGA family surrounded by guns. He could have said that. He didn't. He just said MAGA spent the whole weekend trying to pretend this guy's not one, trying to claim this guy's not one of theirs and blaming everybody else. And my God, I've never heard, Piers, the pro-gun control people blamed this much for gun violence since the last time a Republican kid shot at a Republican figure, Donald Trump, a year ago.

54:37The people who want gun control in this country, they're not the ones you get to blame for this. So they could have fired him. You're right. Kimmel's ratings are in the basement with the demo. Maybe they did want to do this a long time. The timing of it, Piers, is what's going to damn all these players involved, because they will all go down in infamy for being part of this censorship if this goes through. There's no way this ends where it looks good. Kimmel's going to be a free speech hero. He's Library of Congress for the rest of his life. But Carr, Trump, these other folks, again, the comments were not about Kirk.

55:09Piers Morgan:They used it as the excuse. I think the problem was it was ambiguous and it was ambiguous enough that actually a lot of people did take the inference from it that he was making a direct... The ones who wanted to. That he was directly suggesting that actually this kid was a MAGA kid and therefore they were trying to distance themselves. That's the problem with it. Did a single person watch this? No, I'm sorry, that's not correct. He was saying MAGA is trying desperately to claim this kid is not one of theirs. That was the reality of the weekend. That's what they were claiming. John, John. John.

55:40Piers Morgan:John, the point I make here was it was clearly ambiguous because half the country rose up in fury about what they thought he was saying. So my point is, you are assuming, John, you're assuming that your interpretation of it is the correct one. We don't know yet. No, I'm just going by the words on the paper that I read, Piers. I'm just going by the exact words. I don't know what was in his heart. And it wasn't a joke at Mr. Kirk's expense, nor was it a joke denigrating this atrocious crime that happened last week. Again, this is all about weaponizing anger against people who had nothing to do with it.

56:14And that's what we've seen all week long. We saw our good friend Brian Kilmeade the week before call for the murder of homeless people in this country, that they should all be put to death, including thousands and thousands of veterans. I heard no outcry from our conservative brothers and sisters. Brendan Carr was completely undisturbed. That's not on their radar. They don't care that Brian Kilmeade called for the murder of thousands of American vets. They wanted to take this guy out. Iger wanted to merge. This was the excuse they used. Charlie Kirk's death is going to be exploited for a lot of things in the months to come.

56:46Piers Morgan:All right, Tim, let me get around the panel. Kat, Tim, do you think we'll see Kimmel back on his show on ABC, or is that it, do you think? I think that's it, but, I mean, we'll see him somewhere. I mean, we'll see him somewhere, but I don't think he'll be back. I think that the cancellation is going to make too much money for people. Right. Adam Friedman, what do you think? If he's coming back to TV, I don't know. I don't even know the name of the show. Could anyone tell me what the name of his show is on ABC? I know The Tonight Show and Late Night. I mean, like, guys, this is just like, things are, I like it when things are nice and things are not nice right now.

57:28And we need to, like, the president needs to be telling Americans to calm down. There's too much violence right now, no matter what the side is. Yeah, people also need to stop trying to kill him. The one we have right now, people are politicizing violence and blaming the other side and claiming to be victims of the other side. It's not nice, OK? What we need to do is we need to not be killing each other, OK? And it's not Jimmy Kimmel's responsibility to deliver that message. It's the government's responsibility. It's the president's responsibility. So, like, let's, the truth is this, is it like, they're being snowflakes, libs were being snowflakes before.

58:08Can we just, if they both realize the hypocrisy of the snowflakes at the same time, things can calm down. But right now, everything's getting too hot. What? What's the lip hypocrisy? I don't get the both sides in here. What's the lip hypocrisy? I'm sorry. Someone losing, someone losing their health care because they say something that they don't like. You know, that's like people losing their livelihood. They're fighting for everyone. You don't think any conservatives were ever canceled? I mean, they were, of course. I think we've seen a lot of brave conservatives have stood up against this. I think we've seen a lot of brave conservatives who stood up against this with liberals.

58:47I agree. And I don't know any liberals who cheer when someone gets fired by government intervention.

58:52Piers Morgan:Well, we have seen many liberals cheering about Charlie Kirk being murdered and posting TikTok videos. And you would have to do this for that. Well, we've seen them celebrating. We don't have to prove that no liberals are happy when a conservative gets fired. That doesn't prove the point that the Constitution exists. That's what matters right now. Let me ask. It's executive overreach. It's the president's using the FCC to take off, take off a late night host. It's just that it's like a dwindling industry anyway. IT'S NOT A GOOD WAY. IT'S LIKE THIS ENTIRE THING IS LIKE WHAT MATTERS IS THAT PEOPLE ARE KILLING EACH OTHER RIGHT NOW.

59:29IT'S NOT NICE FOR PEOPLE TO BE KILLING EACH OTHER. I AGREE WITH THAT. TIM POOL.

59:37Piers Morgan:I AGREE WITH YOU. TIM POOL.

59:43BOB IGER JUMPED UP ON HIS DESK AND STARTED TAP DANCING WHEN KIMMEL TO TERMINATE HIS CONTRACT A YEAR EARLY WHEN HE IS LOSING MONEY. THAT'S WHAT I THINK HAPPENED.

59:55Piers Morgan:YEAH. JEFF, TY? WELL, I MEAN, I 'LL BE THE BLEEDING HEART HERE AGAIN. I DON'T REALLY CARE IF WE SEE JIMMY KIMMEL BACK ON A LATE NIGHT SHOW AGAIN. WE WON'T SEE CHARLIE KIRK BACK ON HIS SHOW AGAIN. AND THAT WAS KIND OF THE WHOLE ISSUE FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE AND WHAT JIMMY SAID. IT WAS INSENSITIVE AND JUST NOT TO GET THE RIGHT TIME. MAYBE WAIT A WEEK BEFORE YOU GET YOUR JOKES IN. YOU KNOW WHAT? TRUMP. I AGREE WITH THAT. WHENVER PEOPLE SAY WHAT ABOUT TRUMP, I'M LIKE, YEAH, BUT ACTUALLY, NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO REVOLVE AROUND TRUMP IN TERMS OF HOW WE VIEW THESE THINGS. YOU CAN JUST VIEW IT IN THE ROUND.

1:00:38I DON'T PRAY TO DONALD TRUMP. THE JOKE WAS ABOUT TRUMP. I THINK IT'S ABOUT TRUMP. YEAH. OBVIOUSLY THIS IS ABOUT TRUMP GOT HIS FEELINGS HURT. AND MAYBE HE'S FEELING HE DOESN'T HE HAS THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON HIS SHOULDERS, OKAY? AND LIKE DOES HE HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR SELF-CARE? OKAY? WE HAVE TO ASK THIS QUESTION AS CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, NOT YOU, PIERCE. IT WASN'T THE GOLDFISH JOKES THAT HE GOT IN TROUBLE FOR. IT WASN'T THAT DONALD TRUMP MADE THAT THEY MADE THE JOKE ABOUT Donald Trump having more affection for his goldfish or whatever the stupid punchline was. It was the setup and political statement that MAGA is trying to separate itself from...

1:01:18Piers Morgan:Also remember, just before this, there was an outrageous story that came out about the number of conservative guests Kimmel had had on in the last three, four years. And it was like one or two or something ridiculous. That is the problem. Charlie Kirk ironically always sat opposite people who disagree with him. These late-night guys hate Trump so much, they won't have anyone on the conservative right on their programmes, even though half the country or more have voted now twice for Trump to be president. And until that changes, you're going to constantly have a sense of them and us. And I think that's part of the problem.

1:01:55Piers Morgan:I loved it, Kat, when Greg Gutfeld went on Fallon. It was great. It was a nice chat. It was fun. It rated through the roof. You know, that would be great. More of that. Because you guys on Gutfeld have loads of left-wing people on, and it's great. I do the five, and you have always somebody on the left on that. I think on the left, there's a real visceral reluctance to have people on the right even engaging in debate, and that's got to change. Not on the Adam Friedman show. Not on my show. Well, your show's great. I think it's an issue. I think that there's some people... I'm not on the left or the right, and some people won't have me on the show, won't talk to me, simply citing the fact that because I work here.

1:02:33Piers Morgan:Yeah, it's ridiculous. So I would definitely agree that that's a problem. It's a huge problem. I would definitely agree. I hated Kimmel's comments. All that being said, the FCC cannot be engaging in the nuances of content moderation. I totally agree. Everybody should be upset about it. Yeah, I think we can all be upset about that. Thank you. Great, great debate, panel. Thank you very much indeed. Piers Morgan on Sensor is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing. Hit subscribe on YouTube and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

1:03:07Piers Morgan:And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical and we couldn't do it without you.

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