Quite seriously
He has a right to speak his mind, not to have a show.
Short answer: depends on his contract.
Longer answer: if ABC fired him because of illegal threats from Carr, one could construct the argument that ABC and Carr conspired illegally to subvert Kimmel’s First Amendment rights. (Whether this is legal nonsense is beyond me.)
He has better-than-typical odds of clearing the standing hurdle. He was directly harmed, right.
But he's going to have some pretty high evidentiary hurdles, right? Discovery may well turn up that Nextar pulled his shows preemptively, both because of political affiliation and because of an upcoming merger. They didn't need to be "jawboned", and there's not much indication that they were even contacted by the FCC.
When the largest affiliate network in the country pulls your show, it's harder to make the case that ABC itself was responding directly to the FCC, which is what Kimmel will need to establish.
These are positive and not normative arguments and my confidence level is extremely low.
Hmm, with ABC or the government? (Can individuals claim damages in court against the government for First Amendment violations?)
If it were found Carr was acting unconstitutionally, and thus clearly outside the colour of law, could he be found personally liable?
(Side note: thank you, this is what I was hoping for when I posted this here.)
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/entertainment/abc-jimmy-kimme...
I imagine a smoking gun will be demanded by this SCOTUS though, and this kind of stochastic "would be nice if someone..." pressure/threat will get a pass.
Brendan Carr: "This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."
Nice merger you have planned there, sure would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
There's also just a large affiliate station ownership that is conservative, and a large number of affiliates in markets that are themselves very conservative, and Kimmel did say something really dumb that probably did piss a lot of people off in a diffuse, organic way.
Again: I hope he sues, I hope he gets to the inside of a courtroom, and obviously I hope he wins. But speaking descriptively, rather than just what I want to see happening: he has bigger problems than standing ahead of him.
See: Republicans Kill Attempt to Subpoena FCC Chair After Jimmy Kimmel Suspension https://talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things-stand/republicans...
and other sources.
Late night has been dying for a decade. Disney gets cover to end the show.
Kimmel knows it’s over. He gets to go down looking like he’s fighting instead of unentertaining.
Trump gets to claim he took down Kimmel, red meat for his base.
News and Social Media gets something to boost their numbers.
Plus of you're going out in a blaze, it's something more substantive than what he said.
The chilling effect is not "kayfabe".
Edit: oh here we go. Partisan first amendment issues were perfectly fine to discuss here when it was about Twitter. But, different ox being gored now, so we’re going to flag this into oblivion. Absolute frauds.
Good riddance. Who wants to defend a racist?
jjtheblunt•1h ago
Hard to know if that's true, of course.
lawlessone•1h ago
source?
jjtheblunt•1h ago
is one article discussing such. gets more vague the further in.
cosmicgadget•49m ago
yongjik•36m ago