Did you hear the one about the President who couldn’t take a joke?
Not that Trump’s humorless streak is new; many of his allies think he only decided to seek the highest office in the land after then-President Obama roasted him at the 2011 White House Correspondent’s dinner. “I think that is the night he resolves to run for president,” Roger Stone said later.
Guessing at his thinking during that dinner, Omarosa Manigault added, “It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.” Now in his second term, revenge is about the only thing Trump seems able to fit in between rounds of golf. The latest casualty is Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show was indefinitely pulled by ABC on Wednesday following some anodyne comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.
Trump’s FCC Chairman Brendan Carr didn’t bother hiding the threat: “What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC,” he said. “Look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” And we all know how much this administration hates actual work!
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“Is this legal?” you might ask, but then your friends might follow-up with the question, “Have you been in a coma?” Ever since a GOP-controlled Senate voted to acquit Trump on impeachment charges following the January 6th insurrection, the whole concept of “legal” has become like Trump’s spray tan — a thing to look at before it’s washed away. “Can he get away with it?” might be a better question, and I think we all know the answer.
Stephen Colbert’s sudden cancellation came cloaked in plausible deniability — did it really have to do with Paramount needing FCC approval to merge with Skydance, or was it a natural reaction to declining ratings and a weak late-night landscape? But with Kimmel there’s no ambiguity. The White House is crowing about the successful censorship, and they might just be getting started. Only yesterday, the FCC threatened to “look into” The View.
The mood recalls the months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bill Maher’s show Politically Incorrect was canceled after he claimed that flying planes into buildings takes more courage than lobbing cruise missiles — a much more provocative take than most of the Kirk comments — and he was replaced by [drum-roll, please] Jimmy Kimmel Live! The then-Dixie Chicks, Phil Donahue, and even apolitical rock songs like “Hey Man, Nice Shot” all came under fire, and some of those careers never recovered. The Chicks were never as big as The Dixie Chicks, and Donahue’s opposition to the Iraq War effectively ended his 40-year career in broadcast television.
Of course Kimmel and Colbert are millionaires many times over, and if The View gets shut down, those ladies won’t be starving in the streets. But norms are being shattered, the First Amendment has been weakened, and this won’t all get magically fixed after the 2026 midterms. A precedent for a political FCC has been set, and it may take generations to undo.
The pattern is as predictable as it is chilling: Trump, who couldn’t take a joke at that Correspondents’ dinner, is now systematically silencing those who dare to make them. In comedy clubs across America, comedians are wondering if they should self-censor, producers are pulling sketches, and writers are second-guessing every punchline. The old showbiz motto was “laugh while you can,” and those words have rarely felt more like a warning.
