How Other LateNight Hosts Responded to Jimmy Kimmel's Suspension Chad de GuzmanSeptember 19, 2025 at 3:33 AM 0 Stephen Colbert appears as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Sept. 14, 2017.
- - How Other Late-Night Hosts Responded to Jimmy Kimmel's Suspension
Chad de GuzmanSeptember 19, 2025 at 3:33 AM
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Stephen Colbert appears as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Sept. 14, 2017. Credit - Randy Holmes—Disney General Entertainment Content/Getty Images
Jimmy Kimmel may have been silenced by ABC on Wednesday, when the network indefinitely suspended the comedian's late-night show after apparent pressure from the Trump Administration, but his fellow late-night hosts weren't quiet on their own programs about it.
Kimmel's peers, including Stephen Colbert, whose own CBS show was cancelled in similar fashion just a couple months ago, responded to the news with biting humor and clear solidarity.
Colbert: 'We are all Jimmy Kimmel'
"Welcome, one and all, to The Late Show. I'm your host Stephen Colbert," Colbert began his program on Thursday night, "but tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel."
"I still have a show though, right?" he quipped toward the side of his set. "OK, good."
In recapping Kimmel's suspension, which he called "blatant censorship," Colbert warned, "with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch, and if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive."
Colbert emphasized that he stood with Kimmel and his staff, before pulling out his Emmy trophy from Sunday's award ceremony and joking, "you couldn't let me enjoy this for like one week?"
Colbert continued to recap what happened to Kimmel, criticizing Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, whom he mocked for looking like an "individually wrapped hard boiled egg that they sell at the airport," for exerting pressure on ABC and its affiliate broadcasters "to punish Kimmel or else."
Colbert also highlighted the irony of Carr's actions with old tweets in which Carr posted: "From internet memes to late-night comedians … Political satire … helps hold those in power accountable" and "Shutting down this type of political speech - especially at the urging of those targeted or threatened by its message - would represent a serious threat to our freedoms."
"Oh, man, do not tell Brendan Carr that Brendan Carr said that or he's gonna get Brendan Carr to cancel Brendan Carr."
Colbert pointed out that "coincidentally" one of ABC's affiliate broadcasters that pushed for Kimmel's suspension, Nexstar, has a merger that requires the FCC's approval—not unlike the circumstances in which CBS announced that Colbert's Late Show would end after its current season, when CBS parent company Paramount had a deal before the FCC. "A company apparently capitulating to the whims of the President in order to ensure their merger goes through. Has that ever happened before?"
"Oh, I'm being told not to answer that question," he said as if getting instructions from off stage.
Watch Colbert's full monologue here:
Colbert didn't just touch on the Kimmel controversy during his monologue. He also aired a satirical animated short entitled "Disney's Message to Employees: Shut Your Trap" and brought back his persona from former Comedy Central show The Colbert Report to act as The Late Show's "ombudsman" and do one of The Colbert Report's classic segments, "The Word."
"Ladies, gentlemen, my friends, nation, I return to you tonight to rescue from this free speech crisis," the persona, a parody of conservative pundits, said. "I'm going to scream the answer loud and proud, no holds barred with tonight's triumphant word: Shhhhhh."
Jokes appeared on-screen throughout the segment as the Colbert persona advised Americans to "just give up and stop saying anything that might upset the President."
Stewart leads an 'Administration-compliant' Daily Show
On Colbert's former workplace, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, who typically hosts episodes on Monday nights as part of a group of rotating hosts, made an unusual end-of-week appearance Thursday.
The show opened with a new intro, with a voiceover announcing, "From Comedy Central, it's the all new, government-approved Daily Show with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart."
On a gold-decorated set, a visibly fidgety Stewart welcomed the audience: "We have another fun, hilarious, Administration-compliant show!"
Stewart leaned into satire for the entire segment, praising Trump as America's "great father" who has "charm, intelligence, and an undeniable sexual charisma" as well as "unmatched oratory skill." When the audience would boo clips of Trump, Stewart shushed them.
In response to Trump saying Kimmel was cancelled because he's "not a talented person," Stewart explained: "In America, we have a little something called the First Amendment, and let me tell you how it works. There's something called a talent-ometer. It's a completely scientific instrument that is kept on the President's desk, and it tells the President when a performer's TQ, Talent Quotient, measured mostly by niceness to the President, goes below a certain level, at which point the FCC must be notified to threaten the acquisition prospects for billion-dollar mergers of network affiliates. These affiliates are then asked to give ultimatums to the even larger megacorporation that controls the flow of state-approved content or the FCC can just choose to threaten those licenses directly. It's basic science. Read the Constitution. Read your Constitution. Read it!"
The segment ended with Stewart and his co-hosts and correspondents coming together to sing: "Oh Donald, we pledge to thee our word, from the hottest country in the world. You are the leader with no fake newses, and we don't even notice your cankles or your bruises. You ended 8 to 10 wars, and even though some of those countries don't really exist, you deserve all the prizes. I'm talking Nobel Prizes … You have a massive penis, much bigger than normal. Your Operation Warp Speed got us the COVID vax, which we don't like, but it was a great thing, but don't take it … He's a superhero who needs no cape, and he was not technically convicted of—"
Watch the full segment here:
Stewart then sat down with 2021 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and 2018 TIME Person of the Year Maria Ressa, a press freedom advocate from the Philippines, to talk about the trajectory of the U.S. under Trump.
"It feels like Americans are like deer in headlights," Ressa told Stewart. "But if you don't move and protect the rights you have, you lose them. And it's so much harder to reclaim them."
Watch Stewart's conversation with Ressa here:
Meyers: 'We're rapidly devolving into oppressive autocracy'
"Donald Trump is on his way back from a trip to the United Kingdom where he was met with protests, while back here at home, his Administration is pursuing a crackdown on free speech," Seth Meyers said before the start of his "A Closer Look" segment on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday. "And completely unrelated, I just want to say before we get started here, that I've always admired and respected Mr. Trump. I've always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great President, and an even better golfer. And if you've ever seen me say anything negative about him, that's just AI."
Meyers later played a montage of Trump trumpeting his record purportedly opposing censorship and bringing free speech back to America, before cutting to a second montage of breaking news clips about Kimmel's suspension.
"Trump promised to end government censorship and bring back free speech, and he's doing the opposite," Meyers said. "It has experts worried that we're rapidly devolving into oppressive autocracy in the style of Russia or Hungary much faster than anyone could have predicted."
He ended the segment with a heartfelt message: "It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it's a privilege and honor to do this show every night," he said.
Reacting to Kimmel's suspension on Wednesday, Trump had posted on Truth Social: "That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC," referring to Meyers and his network colleague Jimmy Fallon. "Do it NBC!!!" Trump urged.
"I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech," Meyers added, "and we're going to keep doing our show the way we've always done it—with enthusiasm and integrity."
Watch Meyers' full segment here:
Fallon: 'I don't know what's going on, and no one does'
Jimmy Fallon dove straight into the Kimmel news at the start of The Tonight Show. "This morning, I woke up to 100 text messages from my dad saying, 'I'm sorry they canceled your show,'" he joked.
Fallon then turned more serious: "I don't know what's going on, and no one does, but I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he's a decent, funny, and loving guy, and I hope he comes back."
Fallon added, "A lot of people are worried that we won't keep saying what we want to say or that we'll be censored, but I'm going to cover the President's trip to the U.K. just like I normally would," before launching into a bit in which he started speaking about Trump's trip to the U.K., where he was met with protests and Jeffrey Epstein-related demonstrations, but a voiceover dubbed his commentary with uncritical remarks.
"Anyway, to sum it up, President Trump is—" Fallon said, but the voiceover concluded for him: "—making America great again by restoring our national reputation, reinvigorating our economy, and rebuilding our military. I hereby nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize."
Watch Fallon's full monologue here:
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Source: "AOL Entertainment"
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