Day: September 23, 2025

• Donald Trump slammed Disney and ABC for bringing back Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
• He hinted he would be launching a lawsuit against ABC for the decision.
• Last week, ABC suspended Kimmel after his comments about the killing of Charlie Kirk.

President Donald Trump has blasted ABC for its decision to bring Jimmy Kimmel back.

About an hour before Kimmel’s Tuesday night show was set to go live, Trump said in a Truth Social post that he could not believe that ABC had given Kimmel his job back.

“The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled!” he wrote. “Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his ‘talent’ was never there.”

Trump then hinted that the White House could launch a lawsuit against ABC, referencing the $15 million settlement he won from the network after he sued it for defamation.

“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” Trump wrote.

Disney suspended Kimmel’s show on September 17. The show was pulled after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, slammed Kimmel’s comments about the killing of the conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.

The decision to suspend Kimmel caused an uproar, with several figures from Hollywood to late-night show hosts criticizing the Trump administration and accusing it of infringing on free speech rights.

Trump spoke at Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona on Sunday. He previously celebrated Kimmel being pulled off the air.

“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on September 17, taking time to comment on the news during his state visit to the United Kingdom. “Kimmel has ZERO talent, and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that’s possible.”

On Monday, Disney announced that Kimmel would return to “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after previously suspending ABC’s flagship late-night show following Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing.

“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. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the Walt Disney Company said in a statement.

It added, “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

Disney endured days of criticism from Hollywood to Washington over the decision to suspend Kimmel’s show. Before the announcement of his return, more than 400 artists, including Tom Hanks, Pedro Pascal, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Aniston, and Selena Gomez, signed an open letter supporting Kimmel.

Much of the political criticism has focused on FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, who warned Disney “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” while taking issue with Kimmel’s comments.

Carr later applauded Nexstar Media Group, which owns 28 ABC affiliates, after the station owner said it would preempt Kimmel’s show. ABC later suspended Kimmel’s show entirely before Monday’s announcement.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and Trump ally, later said that Carr’s comments sounded like “a mafioso.” Trump has defended Carr and told reporters he disagreed with Cruz’s view of the situation.

Before Trump’s comments, Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Nexstar Media Group, which separately own roughly 25% of all ABC affiliates, each announced that they would continue to air other programming instead of Kimmel’s show.

In its announcement, Nexstar said that viewers could still watch Kimmel via one of Disney’s streaming services.

Separately, Nexstar and Disney have urgent business before the FCC — including Nexstar’s $6.2 billion merger with Tenga, another local TV operator.

Representatives of Trump and Kimmel did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Jimmy Kimmel is back at ABC after being suspended over comments about Charlie Kirk.
• Sinclair and Nexstar still aren’t airing Kimmel’s show on their ABC affiliate stations.

Jimmy Kimmel is back at ABC and returned to the late-night stage Tuesday night.

TK WHAT HE SAID.

The appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is Kimmel’s first public response since ABC temporarily suspended production of the show last week.

TK MORE ON WHAT KIMMEL SAID.

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to criticize ABC about an hour before the episode aired.

“I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was canceled!” he said.

“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” he added.

Trump wrote in his post that Kimmel was “another arm of the DNC” and said Kimmel’s show was, to the best of his knowledge, a “major Illegal Campaign Contribution.”

“I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do,” Trump said, before referencing a bumper settlement he received from ABC after he sued the network for defamation.

“This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers,” he added.

Prior to Tuesday night’s show, Kimmel had not publicly addressed the suspension. In an Instagram post on Tuesday morning, Kimmel shared a photo of himself and Norman Lear, the late American screenwriter and producer who was known for championing progressive causes.

“Missing this guy today,” Kimmel wrote.

Some fans appeared outside the show’s filming location on Hollywood Boulevard on Tuesday to express their support for the late-night comedian’s return.

Kimmel’s suspension last week had become a cultural flash point that many saw as an encroachment on free speech. Hollywood stars, fellow late-night television hosts, and politicians vocally expressed support for Kimmel. Protesters gathered outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, and in New York, where another rally took place outside of ABC’s offices. Meanwhile, some Disney+ and Hulu subscribers threatened to cancel their subscriptions in protest.

Disney-owned ABC had made the call last week to pull the late-night television star from the air after Kimmel’s comments about Charlie Kirk’s death and President Donald Trump. His comments had drawn backlash from the Federal Communications Commission’s chair, Brendan Carr, and affiliate station owners Nexstar and Sinclair said they wouldn’t air the show.

The situation with Nexstar and Sinclair isn’t settled, despite Kimmel’s return. After the Walt Disney Company announced Kimmel’s return on Monday, Sinclair said in a statement that it would not air the show on its ABC affiliate stations, replacing it with news programming. The company said it was still in discussions with ABC and evaluating the show’s “potential return.” Carr said he supported the company’s decision.

Last week, Sinclair said it would not lift the suspension on Kimmel’s show until “appropriate steps” were taken and called for an apology to Kirk’s family, among other demands.

Nexstar followed suit. On Tuesday, the company said it would also continue to air alternative programming instead of Kimmel’s show on its ABC affiliate stations.

On Tuesday, steps away from the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York City, TIME hosted a panel to discuss how AI is transforming systems to address global challenges.

When asked by TIME Executive Editor Nikhil Kumar about the government’s role, Justina Gallegos, a former deputy director in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, argued that its responsibility lies in setting the guardrails of innovation, ensuring the safety of broad communities, and fueling clean energy solutions. “Ninety-six percent of everything that came online last year was clean energy and that’s spurred by fundamental investments from the government,” Gallegos explained.

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Chris Walker, Director of Sustainability at Amazon Web Services (AWS), emphasized that the private sector already played a role. He noted that AWS and Amazon have been “the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for the last five years running,” citing 600 projects worldwide that are producing enough energy to power 8 million U.S. homes. In California, he said, they are even using AI-powered robots to help to install solar panels.

Julie Linn Teigland, EY’s Global Vice Chair for Alliances & Ecosystems, acknowledged that getting companies ready to implement AI tools requires a “flexible” and “agile” management and leadership style, and a lot of “unsexy” work such as regulation and oversight measures. “When people think they can send an email and drive change, I’m sorry, but that’s not it,” she quipped. Teigland also emphasized that companies will have to embrace deeper collaboration in the future, arguing, “you’re never going to solve anything by yourself.”

Nathalie Flores, Vice President of Carbon Markets and Strategic Accounts at StoneX Group, kicked off an audience Q&A session by asking about how companies should give back. Walker pointed to AWS’ investment in local education, citing the establishment of STEM labs for students in Loudoun County, Virginia, where one of the company’s data centers is located. Another question came from Onika Williams at Meta, who asked the panelists to elaborate on how to embrace the unknown of AI.

Teigland responded that the key is “putting humans at the center in everything you do. There’s too much talk about the erasing of jobs and not enough talk about the changing of jobs…I think the opportunity is there, we need to run towards it. This is going to make us better, faster, more intelligent, but we’ve got to do it in the right way.”

TIME100 Talks: Disrupting for Opportunity—Transforming Systems to Address Global Challenges was presented by Philip Morris International.