Late night hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert defend Jimmy Kimmel and free speech

By John Liu, Megan Thomas, CNN

(CNN) — Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart defended Jimmy Kimmel and free speech during their Thursday night shows, after ABC indefinitely suspended his popular late-night show on Wednesday amid a controversy over recent comments made by the longtime host about the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer.

“Jimmy, I stand with you and your staff 100%,” Colbert told his audience at “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” “This is blatant censorship,” he said, adding that “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.”

Jon Stewart, who normally only hosts “The Daily Show” on Mondays, made a special Thursday appearance, also tackling the topic of free speech.

“You may call it ‘free speech’ in Jolly Old England, but in America we have a little something called the First Amendment,” Stewart said after showing a clip of a British journalist asking President Donald Trump about Kimmel’s suspension during a news conference that was part of his state visit to the United Kingdom earlier this week.

ABC, which is owned by Disney, made the abrupt decision to pull Kimmel’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Wednesday evening following public pressure from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, and ABC affiliates.

Kimmel has not yet commented on the suspension. On Thursday, crowds gathered outside the Disney studio in Burbank, California, to protest against the network pulling Kimmel’s show off the air.

Trump has since lauded ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show and said Thursday that networks’ broadcast licenses could be revoked for airing negative information about him.

“I won all seven swing states, popular vote, I won everything,” Trump said, referring to the 2024 election. “And they’re 97% against, they give me wholly bad publicity,” he added, without providing evidence.

“I mean, they’re getting a license, I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” Trump said.

On a set decorated with gold, Stewart satirically and repeatedly paid deference to Trump, calling him “lordship” and “father.” He intentionally avoided potential offensives, such as disagreeing with the president or any of his supporters and jokingly quieted his audience if they booed.

Stewart, whose show is aired on Comedy Central, has been outspoken about the decision by the network’s parent company, Paramount, to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“Our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech. Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principle-less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that, not me, though. I think it’s great,” Stewart said through gritted teeth and a tight smile.

NBC late-night host Seth Meyers took a similar, Trump-effusive approach.

“I’ve always admired and respected Mr. Trump. I’ve always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great president, an even better golfer, and if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI,” Meyers said Thursday.

Another NBC late night host, Jimmy Fallon, commented Thursday that ABC’s decision has left “everyone thinking WTF.”

“To be honest with you all, 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,” he said on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”

Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One while traveling back from the UK, said he would endorse moves by the Federal Communications Commission to pull licenses, and suggested networks should reapply for them periodically. He added later that not airing conservative views could be rationale for removing networks’ licenses.

“That’s something that should be talked about for licensing, too. When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do,” he said. “If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and you take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.”

Trump said he would leave the decision to Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman at the center of this week’s Jimmy Kimmel controversy.

After Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder this week, Carr told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson that the late-night host’s remarks constituted “the sickest conduct possible,” and he suggested the FCC could move to revoke ABC affiliate licenses as a way of forcing Disney to punish Kimmel.

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CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Brian Stelter, Tori B. Powell and Natasha Chen contributed reporting.