yeah, being a gay furry doesn't have much to do with being right-wing afaik

Many politicians use this diversionary tactic to accuse others of the very thing they're doing. In this case, the left was just trying to smokescreen its way out of responsibility. Expect to see it from the right.

It originated as a form of collective narrative control, the source of which is thus far unknown. It was based around the fact that the killer's parents live in a 'red' area and quickly followed up with photos of the killer together with his family at gun shows, the killer wearing a Halloween costume in which he was supposedly riding around on Trump's neck (which I do not see as a pro-Trump statement but that aside). This narrative control was picked up by nearly all of the big actors in the legacy media and in some form still lingers. Kimmel is (or was, that remains to be seen) part of the legacy media and just did what was required of him. The attempt at narrative control failed when clear evidence of the killer's left-leaning political stance and motivation for the assassination surfaced and ABC - still reeling from its other failed attempts at controlling the narrative, remember the edited Harris interview - clearly saw him as a liability and reacted accordingly.