Land of the free? Jimmy Kimmel and the death of discourse

0:00How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Coming up on The Daily with me, Neil Patterson. Another late-night talk show host gets cancelled over comments relating to Donald Trump. What's happening to free speech in the land of the free?

0:42How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Trump today became the first president to sue the New York Times. He's suing the New York Times for$15 billion for defamation. $15 billion. Where does he even come up?

1:23These are like numbers my children make up when they're talking about money. I thought he said the New York Times was failing. He thinks they have$15 billion? That's Jimmy Kimmel, US late-night talk show host for the ABC network, indulging in one of his favourite pastimes, having a pop at the president. Not that you'll be seeing on your screen again any time soon. His bosses have just pulled the plug on his long-running prize-winning show. The reason, well, ostensibly, it's comments he made around the murder of right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. The MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, said Kimmel, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

2:06He also mocked Donald Trump's reaction to the assassination. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend, he said. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish. OK, I'll admit it, pretty powerful stuff. But did it demand Kimmel's departure? The short answer is yes, if that is your Brendan Carr, the head of the FCC, the US broadcast regulator. So I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless and are looking for ways to get attention. But, you know, their grip on the narrative is slipping. That doesn't mean that it's still not, you know, important to hold the public interest standard.

2:47That's what we're going to have to do. It should be noted that Mr. Carr was put in his job by, just hold on a sec, let me check my notes, oh yeah, Donald Trump. Is free speech more under attack in Britain or America? Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk, and Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person. He had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago. So, you know, you can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent. And if all this sounds familiar, another late-night host, Stephen Colbert, is being abandoned by his network, CBS, after he criticised the White House.

3:26Add in a$15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, and it feels like the president has a bit of an issue. With journalists and journalism, yes, but also free speech. Voices are being silenced, though there are comedians this side of the Atlantic willing to call it out. Trump just won the White House. Being offended doesn't work anymore. Throwing insults doesn't work anymore. Stop thinking that everyone who disagrees with you is evil or racist or sexist or stupid and talk to them. Persuade them otherwise, because if you don't, I'll tell you what you get. You get President Trump.

4:06That is Jonathan Pye, fictitious political correspondent and the creation of comedian Tom Walker. Jonathan has been following US and UK politics. since just before the first Trump administration. Tom, what do you make of the Kimmel situation? It's an odd one. It depends why he's been suspended, OK? There are two things that he said that seem to have got him into trouble. The first being that the Trump administration have been doing everything they can to make this person not look like one of them. And the implication there is that the shooter was a Republican. And I think that's probably unfair, probably disingenuous.

4:47It was an implication rather than an explicit statement. And I would pull him up on that because we don't know, essentially, what these killers' motives were and what the killer's voting record is or whatever. But the other statement, which I think is the reason that he has been suspended, is him saying that the Republicans are doing everything they can. they they're using Charlie Kirk's death to score as many political points as they can and I would agree with him on that I think that's demonstrably true and you might disagree with him on that but I don't think that's a a cancellable offence when it comes to the first point of him trying to apportion blame and trying to imply the shooter's political affiliations that would hold some truck if the republicans having a go in for that if trump hadn't come out almost minutes after charlie kirk's death and a portion blamed to the far left without any knowledge whatsoever so i think it's it's we're in an odd time when a a late night comedian is held to a higher standard than the the president in the united states and his vice president but okay let me let me let me make the case from from the other side of the political divide i mean isn't isn't jimmy kimmel just experiencing cancel culture in the way in which right-wingers in the United States and in the United Kingdom have for a lot longer than the left.

6:14I would say that you've had right-wingers shouting at left-wingers and in the main, or a lot of the time rightly so, for being pearl-clutching, censorious, cancel-y and having a go at us for being that way. So it seems a bit odd when it comes back the other way. You either believe in free speech, or you don't. And obviously, I'm on the left, and I'm of the left, and my character is on the left. But when I first started, I would quite often do a piece about freedom of speech. And I found it extraordinary that it was left wing liberals who would pick me up on that. Because I know it's an old trope, but it's worth repeating obviously if you believe in free speech you believe in a person you fundamentally disagree with you believe in their right to to say their beliefs and and i found it very strange uh and shocking really when i first started almost 10 years ago that that was a controversial position from the left what seems to be happening is is that we as as the left have almost given up on free speech.

7:24And we kind of gladly handed it to the right wingers and they claimed ownership of free speech and freedom of expression. And now they're using it as a stick to beat us with. I think where Jimmy Kimmel made a mistake and something that I wouldn't cancel him for, but I would pull him up on is his implication that this guy is on the right. I mean, and we all did it. I think we all did it. We all went online and we were desperate to discover who this killer was because we wanted to discover that he was on the other side and therefore we would all win which says everything you need to know about the state of political discourse it's about winning the argument not not about uh listening what then do you make of the the current state of in inverted commas freedom of speech in the united states does it exist when you have a president so actively on maneuvers against his more vocal critics within that first amendment is freedom of the press.

8:21I mean, it's quite clear that Trump is cracking down on freedom of the press, of anyone that is a detractor of his. So I think freedom of speech is under a huge amount of threat in America. But what is so ironic about it is that these people purport to be bastions of free speech. And it's the complete opposite, as far as I can tell. And I'm not putting all the blame here on on right wingers i think the left have enabled a culture where people don't feel that they're able to express their views the left wing were the flag bearers of of cancel culture and now it's sort of coming back to bite us in in a terrifying way i think there is an assumption in this country that anyone that is thinking of voting nigel farage is a right-wing nut job, that anyone in this country who happens to have immigration as their top priority, it's not my top priority, that's way down the list of the reasons I vote, but for a lot of people it is their top priority to just dismiss them all as a basket of deplorables or right-wing racists is one, I think, inaccurate, but two, tactically ridiculous.

9:42Do you want these people's vote or don't you? Because if you don't want their vote, you're going to lose the election. And left wingers have not been very good at winning elections for the last decade. We won the culture war whilst continually losing political elections. But I feel that now that pendulum is swinging and we've kind of lost the culture war as well. Do you think that Donald Trump is as as thin-skinned as some people make out. Yeah I do think he is thin-skinned. I mean you could argue that the reason he went to run for president in the first place is because Obama took the piss out of him at a bread dinner which is you know one reason I suppose to enter politics.

10:30You just have to look at the way that world leaders this second time round because he's more accepted this time round, fawn over him because they're, you know, we want to get a trade deal with him. So, you know, we have to wine and dine him and massage his ego because that's the way he works. So could you then do what you do, Jonathan Pye, in this current Trump administration? I mean, I know you've worked with American news outlets in the past. I mean, could you be in the United States right now saying the things you are? I genuinely don't think I'd be allowed into the country. And that might sound dramatic, but they go through your social media posts.

11:15I think Trump thinks that not agreeing with him is anti-American, whereas it's not. It's anti-Trump. It's anti-Republican. So a lot of my posts would be seen as anti-American. I dislike Trump immensely, but I almost dislike us more for being so inept at allowing him to get in again. So, Tom, do you see then people like Jimmy Kimmel as being complicit in that victory? No, I don't. I think Jimmy Kimmel is, you know, most of these late night guys are left leaning. And Trump is, you know, he's an own goal for satire. And I don't think there was much that Jimmy Kimmel said in his monologue the other day that was anywhere near as divisive as the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump or J.D.

12:09Vance. You know, there is an inherent hypocrisy there. But I think online culture and the culture of discourse, that is to blame. could I read something to you that this would be uh please indulge me but but I post out this week about the Charlie Kirk murder and it was called uh the death of discourse and it was all about how the right and the left and we all hurl arguments at each other and this is just two tweets that I got right and basically I was having a go at the left for being censorious and maybe creating a culture where where this happens and I was having a go at the right for you know their hypocrisy and everything.

12:52But these are two tweets that kind of, bear in mind, the video is called The Death of Discourse. And this was one tweet that I got. He's not a martyr. What the F is wrong with you? You really have rotted your brain just full of right wing BS. You're not funny. You're just another right wing prick. Excuse me. The next one goes, arseholes like you, a Wyker, got shot. You pushed this leftist crazy nonsense. You call people Nazis and fascists and you voted for it. So my point I'm making there is that I was, for being fairly on the fence and fairly saying maybe we should bring back political discourse, I'm being attacked from the right as being a loony lefty and I'm being attacked from the left for being a far-right stooge.

13:39I think that's the problem, is that we have forgotten how to talk and listen to people that we fundamentally disagree with. That doesn't mean you have to listen to racist bile or anything like that, but discourse is kind of dead. And without it, democracy is dead. Should we here in the United Kingdom look at what's happening in the United States and perhaps be a little bit unsettled on our lofty pedestal in the sense that freedom of expression, freedom of speech in this country is not necessarily all that it once was. Absolutely not. I mean, police are knocking on people's doors for unsavoury tweets that are unpleasant, but I don't think that's usually a great use of the police's time.

14:33On the other side of it, you've got 90-year-old veterans getting arrested for suggesting that a genocide occurring in Gaza might not be the right thing. So, you know, it's all encompassed freedom of speech is the right to protest from a comedy point of view comedy is always about finding the line that you mustn't cross and gently stepping over it I certainly censor myself a lot more than than I used to for my well from my online stuff I I have to think about I mean a lot of that's to do with with with the audience to a certain extent if people come and watch my live show that's a different contract right they paid money to come and see it so you can challenge them a bit more.

15:16People might happen across my content online. And therefore, I've got to be a bit more careful that there is a balance to it, to a certain extent. But I certainly have to think a lot more than perhaps I did five or six years ago. I think that there are issues of free speech in this country. I don't think quite as bad as what's happening in America. But we have to be careful. But the debate on both sides at the Atlantic is becoming more and more toxic, I think. And it's divide and conquer. You're either with me or you're against me. And I think both sides have to take some responsibility for that.

15:55How concerned are you then, looking at what is happening in the United States? Kimmel being taken off air, Stephen Colbert being cancelled as a result of, a direct result of what he'd actually said on air. I mean, how much does that alarm and worry you? It would alarm me less if there wasn't the inherent hypocrisy coming from the Trump administration. These people are clearly being suspended or cancelled because of pressure from the government, because they've said something that the government doesn't like. and for them in the next breath to lay blame for Charlie Kirk's murder on all left-wingers rather than one radicalised mad guy, let's be honest.

16:45And we don't know who he's been radicalised by. He's clearly been steeped in internet gaming culture. Well, that's not left all right, but we're all trying to apportion blame there. I think it is scary. But what's scarier is that you've got these right wingers that have been shouting about the importance of free speech, which I agree with them on now, almost kind of going, well, you asked for it. It was like, no, you either agree with free speech or you don't. And you can't pick and choose. It's not just for people that you like. It is explicitly also free speech is for people that you don't like.

17:22And both sides need to remember that. what does Jonathan Pye make of the world right now he was an angry man you know the best part of a decade ago when I first encountered him has he moderated has he just thought you know what this is the way the world is going and and has to deal with it how does he view the world I think uh I think he's mellowed as I've mellowed a little he's not quite the angry man that he used to be. He's the sort of depressed at the state of the world man, you know. The first time Trump was in, it was all a little bit like, it was almost fun because I'd never quite seen anything quite like it.

18:04This time round, he has been legitimised. So there is an element of despair. And like I say, I think left wingers and someone like Jonathan Pye could feel comfort in the fact that whilst we might not always be winning elections, we appear to have won the culture war, we appear to have won the argument. I don't think that's any longer the case. And that is why Pi would be more despairing than ever, I think. In terms of the discourse, and you've long been making this point, that it has become more divisive, that more invective has been injected into it, that people have positions that they hold and will not back away from them.

18:46I mean, do you see the pendulum swinging back anytime soon? Or is this, as you say, a huge issue, not just for the United States, but for all of us in the Western world? I think the pendulum has a lot further to swing before it starts swinging back. I think Nigel Farage, there is a distinct possibility he could be our next prime minister. I think he is in the eyes of the public, the opposition right now. That would be a massive swing to the right. I think it would be a massive swing away from liberal progressive ideals. And he would have to be in their return before we even started to swing back again.

19:29But whether he is our next prime minister or not, we have a massive swing politically and culturally happening across a lot of the Western world, but in this country, massively towards the right, and importantly, culturally towards the right, which I don't think we've seen in my adult lifetime. Thanks, Tom. For the very latest on that Trump visit and to see if any other talk show hosts have been booted, just head over to the website skynews.com. That's your lot for today. Do take care.

20:06How does a banana trigger a CIA-backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world-shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow. Bye»