Jimmy Kimmel show canceled - MAGA erodes Free Speech

When it came to light in August 2025 that Steven Colbert’s Late Show was canceled with the last episode to be aired May 2026, Donald Trump could not had be happier. The official reason given was the show would cost some 16 million Dollar. But it’s assumed that instead Trump blackmailed CBS behind closed doors that the planed merger with Paramount would not pass the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) office. One good thing coming out of it was Colbert mentioning, that the gloves come off now. And soon he became more direct in criticizing Trump. Trump was happy and was mentioning Kimmel is next.

A four-year-old mourns his goldfish

In September 2025 right wing „master debater“ (courtesy of South Park) Charlie Kirk was popped with a single bullet to the neck. For Trump it could not had come any better. Mere minutes later he already blamed left wing “extremists” for the murder of “his good friend”. When Trump was asked in the yard of the White House about Kirk he very soon deviated to continuing bragging about the ball room he is going to construct. Jimmy Kimmel, who sent his condolences to Kirk’s widow and family, used this footage to state “MAGA gang" [were] "desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" [trying to] "score political points from it”. And added Trump’s “mourning” would be like “how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish” This was just an observation in my opinion, but the network took the opportunity to cancel Kimmel’s show, to not being a target for a threat by the MAGA cult. The network stated that  Mr. Kimmel said the suspected killer was a "Make America Great Again" Republican. Which he didn’t: As there was no information from the FBI about the murderer's political agenda, Trump quickly jumped to the conclusion, that the murderer was "a left extremist". Kimmel just said in his show that he also might be right wing, because the FBI did not release anything in this direction. Thus the chairman of the FCC Brendan Carr stated that “[Kimmel’s action] directly mislead the American public”.

Cancel culture

Hosts of other late shows said Trump’s administration peruses a crackdown of free Speech and “we must all stand up for freedom of expression”. Colbert dedicated a whole monologue of an episode with the title We are all Jimmy Kimmel and talking about a “blatant assault on freedom of speech”. Trump reiterated later that all comedy shows were hitting the president of the United States, and 97 % of the reports where criticizing him. That has to stop according to Trump. Steven Colbert quoted this statement and added, that all comedy shows since their inception usually criticize the current president, which now happens to be Donald Trump. The crackdown of free speech by the current US President Donald J. Trump is unPRESIdented in the history of the United States.

Road to a fascist state

What has not (yet) been said is, that new is, that any president of the USA ever threatened to get a show canceled, blackmailing TV stations hosting these show to take action (or else…), and now even succeeded in canceling two of these shows. This is in my opinion what needs to stop. If it is allowed to continue, the right of freedom of speech (part of the US Constitution) is being eroded or may be even destroyed. Other things which could criticize the president will then be silenced too. It ends up with a fascist state, run by an autocratic dictator. Then the USA is no better than China, Iran or North Korea.

Wake up America!

Americans who don’t want to live like in Iran, China or North Korea need to stand up and defend your Constitution. If you continue sleeping you’ll one day wake up in an isolated police state with no right to state your opinion or be free to do what you want to do. You cannot take your current freedom for granted anymore. You have to fight for it.

According to Trump’s Days Clock it’s still a long time for Trump to build on his dream to become a dictator. I don’t think the world can wait and ride out the storm. Who knows if there will be any more free and not rigged elections in 2028. Or if, and MAGA drew even more followers the next US President is called J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio.