Hodgetwins - Jimmy Kimmel Gets his Job Back and this is why….
Aired: 2025-09-23
Duration: 13:41


=== Wrongful Termination or Free Speech (10:47) ===

[00:00:00]  The Walt Disney Company announced that the show will be back on the air September 23rd, releasing a statement September 22nd saying, quote, last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.
[00:00:16]  What do the left say?
[00:00:18]  Freedom of speech.
[00:00:19]  Trump had something to do with this.
[00:00:20]  Trump ain't got nothing to do with this.
[00:00:21]  He's just a fall guy.
[00:00:24]  Continues, quote, it is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.
[00:00:30]  Exactly.
[00:00:31]  Spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy.
[00:00:34]  And after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.
[00:00:39]  They're using euphemistic language.
[00:00:41]  That was vile comments he made.
[00:00:43]  Right.
[00:00:43]  Disgusting comments.
[00:00:45]  Sinclair, the broadcasting company that makes up the nation's largest ABC affiliate group, released a statement September 17th, rejecting Jimmy's comments and asking the host to, quote, issue a direct apology to the Kirk family.
[00:00:58]  Statement also says, quote, we asked Mr. Kimmel to make a meaningful personal donation to the Kirk family and Turning Point USA before announcing it would refrain from airing Jimmy Kimmel live until quote appropriate steps have been taken.
[00:01:13]  Meanwhile, Jimmy did react to Kirk's death with a plea for the nation, sharing in a September 10th statement on Instagram, quote, instead of the angry finger pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?
[00:01:27]  He continues, quote, on behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents, and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.
[00:01:37]  Do you think that's genuine at all?
[00:01:38]  Nope, because he's throwing in gun violence.
[00:01:40]  It has nothing to do with the weapon that was used.
[00:01:43]  Yeah.
[00:01:44]  And if you really felt like that, why didn't you say that on your show?
[00:01:47]  Yeah.
[00:01:47]  You want your show back, so you just bending the knee and just doing what they want.
[00:01:51]  The only reason why he shared that message is because they hate guns.
[00:01:55]  Yeah.
[00:01:56]  That's the whole point of that message.
[00:01:57]  Yeah, but gun violence.
[00:01:58]  But if this was sincere and genuine, the day after that happened on the show, he would have said all of these things.
[00:02:04]  Right.
[00:02:04]  Yeah.
[00:02:05]  How much want to bet he didn't even tweet this?
[00:02:07]  No, I'm pretty sure.
[00:02:08]  Yeah, I know.
[00:02:09]  He continues, quote, on behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents, and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.
[00:02:18]  Yeah, that's like a slap in the face to the Kirk family.
[00:02:21]  I mean, it'd been genuine if you said it from the jump, but you didn't.
[00:02:24]  Yeah.
[00:02:24]  But you threw in that left, that leftist narrative.
[00:02:28]  They want to get rid of guns.
[00:02:29]  Yeah.
[00:02:30]  And y'all want to get rid of guns because of what Democrats, the leftists do with the guns, not what the right does with the guns.
[00:02:37]  Right.
[00:02:37]  Violence.
[00:02:38]  Disney is bringing him back on the air tomorrow.
[00:02:41]  ABC says in a statement that we made the decision last week to suspend production to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment.
[00:02:50]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:51]  Yeah, it had nothing to do with Trump.
[00:02:53]  Yeah.
[00:02:53]  But that was a good decision on that part.
[00:02:55]  Yeah.
[00:02:55]  I don't think they should have took a step further by canceling him, but it's a money thing for them because a lot of people canceled that Disney Plus membership subscriptions and stuff like that.
[00:03:05]  They were going to lose a lot of money.
[00:03:06]  He doesn't make them a lot of money, but he was going to lose them a lot of money.
[00:03:10]  Right.
[00:03:10]  But you know what?
[00:03:11]  They're not Disney's not remaining consistent.
[00:03:15]  I mean, when Republicans say something that's inappropriate that you deem inappropriate, they lose their careers, they lose their jobs.
[00:03:22]  They don't get a second chance.
[00:03:24]  Y'all giving this man a second chance.
[00:03:26]  Like Megan Kelly, when she lost her job, she apologized and everything for what she said.
[00:03:30]  He still lost her job.
[00:03:31]  Roseanne Ball, she said that woman like one of the planet of the apes.
[00:03:34]  That scientist.
[00:03:35]  She apologized.
[00:03:37]  But she never did get a job.
[00:03:38]  She apologized?
[00:03:39]  Yeah, she apologized.
[00:03:39]  Like, she said she was high or something.
[00:03:44]  But they never gave her job back.
[00:03:46]  Look, I'm all about freedom of speech.
[00:03:48]  Y'all want to give him his job back.
[00:03:50]  That's not freedom of speech, though, Kevin.
[00:03:51]  Yeah, I know.
[00:03:52]  But this is a double standard here.
[00:03:54]  He gets his job back.
[00:03:56]  Republicans don't.
[00:03:58]  Y'all not consistent.
[00:03:59]  Yeah.
[00:03:59]  Yeah.
[00:04:00]  I'm all for like when Megan Kelly said, y'all deem she said something that's inappropriate, suspend her for a week.
[00:04:06]  Or Roseanne Ball, you suspend her from a show for a week.
[00:04:08]  I'm all about that, right?
[00:04:10]  But y'all actually cancel people on the right, and you don't do that on the left.
[00:04:15]  Yeah.
[00:04:15]  You don't.
[00:04:16]  Now, after having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, the ABC says we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.
[00:04:24]  So Kimmel's getting back to work.
[00:04:27]  Wow.
[00:04:28]  Brian, that is significant, especially given that some of the players outside of Disney in a corporate setting, like Nexstar and Sinclair, they essentially have deals that allowed them to preempt his show.
[00:04:43]  And that's part of the reason that it was suspended.
[00:04:45]  Do we know how they might react to this?
[00:04:49]  We don't.
[00:04:50]  And that becomes the big question now.
[00:04:51]  Will these local station affiliates choose to air Jimmy Kimmel live, or will they continue to protest the comedian, even though the network is bringing him back nationwide?
[00:05:02]  ABC does gently chastise Kimmel in this statement.
[00:05:06]  The statement says, quote, the decision to suspend him, we made it because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.
[00:05:14]  So they're very gently saying they disagreed with Kimmel last week, but obviously they're bringing it back as of tomorrow.
[00:05:23]  And we don't know, obviously, all of the considerations that went into this, Brian, but I would say leaders, obviously, at ABC and Disney have had the benefit of a few days of feedback.
[00:05:36]  Yeah.
[00:05:38]  Including from Disney employees who were very disturbed, including from Hollywood stars and showrunners, the kind of people Disney wants to work with, and from free speech groups, politicians, even some Republican politicians like Chad Cruz.
[00:05:51]  We know the condemnation of Disney has been widespread.
[00:05:55]  Now, what we don't know yet is what the counter reaction will be from President Trump and his allies.
[00:06:01]  Ain't no nothing president can do.
[00:06:03]  He can't do anything but run his mouth.
[00:06:07]  Look, this is what freedom of speech is.
[00:06:08]  If the government comes in and arrests you for something you said and locks you up, that's a violation of freedom of speech.
[00:06:13]  Your employer firing you for something you said, making that brand look bad, that's not a freedom of speech issue.
[00:06:20]  You can't just say whatever you want whenever you want it.
[00:06:22]  That's not what freedom of speech is.
[00:06:24]  Yeah.
[00:06:25]  You can't go up to your boss, say, suck my cock, and expect nothing to happen to you.
[00:06:28]  You're going to get fired.
[00:06:30]  Yeah.
[00:06:30]  Y'all just not consistent.
[00:06:31]  Give him his job back.
[00:06:32]  I'm all for it, but you got to get Roseanne her job back, give Megan Kelly her job back, give all these other, give Turker Carlson's job back.
[00:06:40]  It's just y'all have a double standing when it comes to these things.
[00:06:43]  And Republicans don't get a second chance.
[00:06:46]  Yeah.
[00:06:46]  But it's just like disgusting.
[00:06:47]  They keep trying to make Trump the fall guy, the scapegoat.
[00:06:50]  Yeah, then network came forward and said why they suspended him.
[00:06:55]  They never did fire him.
[00:06:56]  They suspended him and why they suspended him.
[00:06:59]  But here is CNN still bringing Trump into this.
[00:07:03]  He doesn't even belong in the conversation.
[00:07:05]  Right.
[00:07:06]  Y'all trying to make him out like some far-right president.
[00:07:09]  That's what you're trying to do.
[00:07:12]  That's the point they're trying to make.
[00:07:13]  Yeah, Nazi, stuff like that.
[00:07:15]  Yeah.
[00:07:15]  When he was never involved.
[00:07:17]  It wasn't even discussions with the ABC and New Zealand.
[00:07:20]  Yeah.
[00:07:20]  Like Trump got on the phone, you better fire him or there's going to be some repercussions.
[00:07:25]  Stupid.
[00:07:26]  That's a really good point.
[00:07:27]  Brian, please tell me your reaction to this news.
[00:07:30]  It's great news.
[00:07:31]  It's great news.
[00:07:32]  And I think you're absolutely right.
[00:07:33]  And Brian is absolutely right.
[00:07:34]  This was a community standing up for the rights of Jimmy Kimmel and all people who speak in public, entertainers and journalists and all of them.
[00:07:43]  And it worked at least with the head of Disney.
[00:07:46]  And it makes good sense because they would have won in court.
[00:07:50]  One thing people that gets lost.
[00:07:51]  They would have won in court.
[00:07:53]  They wouldn't have won in court.
[00:07:54]  They could fire him for him saying something and putting that brand in a bad light.
[00:07:58]  Yeah, they can fire him for his ratings.
[00:08:00]  Yeah.
[00:08:02]  This is not a freedom of speech.
[00:08:04]  This is not a freedom of speech issue.
[00:08:06]  It's a wrongful termination issue.
[00:08:08]  Yeah.
[00:08:08]  And he, NBC, ABC, whoever, Disney, they would have won that case easily.
[00:08:14]  Yeah.
[00:08:15]  Boston this.
[00:08:16]  You do not lose your First Amendment rights because you have a broadcast license.
[00:08:20]  You're a journalist.
[00:08:22]  This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
[00:08:23]  His political spin is what it is.
[00:08:25]  That's what you're doing.
[00:08:27]  Didn't he get fired from his other job or something?
[00:08:28]  Or am I confusing him with somebody else?
[00:08:30]  Yeah, he says he.
[00:08:32]  I can't remember.
[00:08:33]  I think he did lose his job.
[00:08:35]  Yeah, we might be confusing.
[00:08:37]  No, I'm definitely.
[00:08:37]  I'm thinking.
[00:08:38]  Yeah, he was on MSNBC.
[00:08:39]  He lost his job for nightline or something, right?
[00:08:44]  I forget what he said, but he said something stupid and he's not on there anymore.
[00:08:48]  Supreme Court has been clear on this.
[00:08:49]  The government cannot take your license because of speech they don't like.
[00:08:53]  Exactly.
[00:08:53]  We were talking about Catherine Graham when the news broke.
[00:08:57]  And these are the considerations of these bigger companies about how they're going to handle this and how they're going to think about it.
[00:09:06]  They do have the benefit of some history as they do consider these moves.
[00:09:09]  Right.
[00:09:10]  Well, Catherine Graham, when Nixon threatened to take her FCC, the Washington Post FCC licenses, they had some local stations.
[00:09:15]  It was a main source of income.
[00:09:17]  She published them anyway.
[00:09:18]  She said, forget about it.
[00:09:20]  And that kind of corporate courage is rare, especially in the face of an administration that exceeds by many orders of magnitude any other presidency.
[00:09:28]  Trying to silence speech it doesn't like spinning this entire story.
[00:09:33]  It was.
[00:09:33]  It was Disney's decision, not Trump's.
[00:09:36]  They still spinning it though.
[00:09:38]  Yeah, trying getting trying to get the American public to hate Trump.
[00:09:42]  Yeah, if we still have Brian, I want to go back to him, because one of the uh interesting bits of reporting that we got over the last few days was that Kimmel was actually preparing a monologue that would up the ante against some of the uh feedback that he got from the Trump administration.
[00:10:02]  I mean, can you imagine Brian, what might be formulating?
[00:10:06]  That's even more reason why they suspended him.
[00:10:08]  Just trying to bring down the temperature?
[00:10:10]  Yeah, and he was trying to bring it down, and Jimmy Kimmel was not trying to bring it down in terms of a response when he gets back on the air.
[00:10:18]  Right, Kimmel wanted to defend himself.
[00:10:20]  So now tuesday night's monologue becomes even more interesting.
[00:10:24]  What he will be critical and it might affect what local stations decide to do going forward.
[00:10:33]  Yeah uh, certainly will.
[00:10:35]  Um, the I?
[00:10:37]  I want to know what you think, Terry about.
[00:10:40]  Um, just sort of the moment that we are in when it comes to free speech and I also want to play a moment from the White House.

=== White House Overreach on Censorship (02:54) ===

[00:10:47]  They say they keep bringing up free speech.
[00:10:51]  These these, uh sinned in journalists right here is not arrested.
[00:10:54]  I'm on youtube, i'm on podcasts and I know more than you people press briefing today.
[00:10:58]  This was, uh a correspondent for Turning Point, USA Frontline, associated with the group that Charlie Kirk founded, who asked the White House press secretary what her message is to Americans who are too afraid to express their beliefs.
[00:11:10]  Here's a brief part of what Caroline Lovitt said.
[00:11:14]  We have a right to free speech in this country.
[00:11:17]  The president supports it.
[00:11:18]  It is protected by our beautiful Constitution.
[00:11:21]  And Americans should not cower in fear.
[00:11:23]  They should rise up in courage to continue speaking the truth.
[00:11:28]  What do you think about what you're hearing from the White House there?
[00:11:31]  She said, speak the truth.
[00:11:33]  Jimmy Kimmel lied.
[00:11:35]  Yeah, but she's stating how this administration stands for freedom of speech.
[00:11:42]  None of this BS that they're pushing.
[00:11:45]  Yeah, that is.
[00:11:46]  That was Trump's call to take him down.
[00:11:48]  Whereas we just get this news that Jimmy Kimmel will return to air tomorrow night.
[00:11:52]  Right.
[00:11:52]  Well, see what the White House says.
[00:11:54]  Everybody should speak up except the ones that the president doesn't like.
[00:11:57]  He just barked at my former colleague, Jonathan Carl.
[00:12:00]  Maybe we'll come after you because I don't like the content of your news coverage.
[00:12:04]  All of this.
[00:12:04]  What is coming after you?
[00:12:05]  Criticizing you?
[00:12:07]  So he can't even...
[00:12:07]  Look at this.
[00:12:08]  We can't even criticize the left.
[00:12:11]  It means we're coming from you.
[00:12:12]  We're going to take you off the air.
[00:12:13]  We're going to lock you up.
[00:12:15]  Oh, my God.
[00:12:15]  They're trying to take away my freedom of speech.
[00:12:17]  That's because they're criticizing you.
[00:12:19]  Look how they're spinning this story.
[00:12:21]  Yeah, stupid.
[00:12:23]  This is bedrock First Amendment rights that we all have.
[00:12:27]  And I think, I think they've overreached here.
[00:12:29]  Most Americans.
[00:12:32]  Shut up.
[00:12:34]  These people, Joe, we overreach.
[00:12:37]  Y'all didn't have none of this energy when Trump was banned from every platform on social media.
[00:12:42]  Exactly.
[00:12:43]  And he was the president of the United States.
[00:12:46]  And y'all applauded.
[00:12:47]  Y'all celebrated.
[00:12:49]  Y'all praised all these social media platforms when he did that to Trump.
[00:12:53]  But look at you.
[00:12:54]  For a guy that's saying vile things after a political assassination, y'all stand up for that?
[00:13:02]  Yeah, I just don't get these.
[00:13:03]  He was shot because of his freedom of speech.
[00:13:06]  Right.
[00:13:07]  These arguments that y'all presented on CNN, y'all should have been using it when describing what happened to Charlie Kirk.
[00:13:14]  That's when you should use freedom of speech.
[00:13:15]  Yeah.
[00:13:17]  You Democrats, you Democrats keep doing what you're doing.
[00:13:20]  Y'all see what happened last election.
[00:13:23]  Y'all see how this has galvanized people on the right to support the Republican.
[00:13:26]  Democrats are saying, man, our party is weird.
[00:13:29]  The people that votes with me, the way these people are behaving, how evil and violent discussing these people is.
[00:13:38]  A lot of Democrats are taking a hard look in the mirror because of this.
[00:13:41]  Yeah.