{"id":2488181,"date":"2025-09-18T13:23:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/leftists-crying-over-kimmel-were-happy-to-deny-free-speech\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T13:25:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:25:21","slug":"leftists-crying-over-kimmel-were-happy-to-deny-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/leftists-crying-over-kimmel-were-happy-to-deny-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Leftists Crying Over Kimmel Were Happy To Deny &#8216;Free Speech&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fleftists-crying-over-kimmel-were-happy-to-deny-free-speech%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2488181&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the recent removal of Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s show from ABC affiliate stations after he falsely claimed that supporters of former President Trump (referred to as the &#8220;MAGA gang&#8221;) were trying to distance themselves from a murderer. This false statement led to Nextstar Media Group deciding not to air Kimmel&#8217;s program, citing FCC rules against broadcasting knowingly false data that could cause public harm. The article highlights that while some on the political left have loudly decried this as a free speech violation, they have been notably silent or supportive when <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >conservative figures adn viewpoints<\/a> were previously censored or deplatformed, such as Roseanne Barr&#8217;s sitcom cancellation, the banning of Donald Trump from Twitter, and other instances involving conservative voices being silenced. The author argues that the left&#8217;s sudden concern for free speech is more about leveraging the situation to criticize Trump and advance a political narrative, rather than a genuine defense of free expression. The piece also references documented government and social media company collaborations to censor content unfavorable to the Biden administration,further illustrating perceived inconsistent applications of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-twitter-contributed-to-david-frenchs-destruction-of-his-own-character\/\" title=\"How Twitter Contributed To David ...\u2019s Destruction Of His Own Character\">free speech advocacy<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>ABC News pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air on Wednesday. Not for being painfully unfunny, and not even for having an opinion. No, Kimmel got yanked because he flat-out lied and claimed: &ldquo;the MAGA gang desperately [is] trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>It was a pure lie. Following widespread criticism, Nextstar Media Group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/09\/17\/charlie-kirk-jimmy-kimmel-abc-disney.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> its ABC affiliate stations would not run Kimmel&rsquo;s show over the comments. <\/p>\n<p>FCC commissioner <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/09\/17\/jimmy-kimmel-blatantly-broke-fcc-rules-and-brendan-carr-was-right-to-notice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Brendan Carr<\/a> noted ABC could face repercussions, but he didn&rsquo;t force ABC to do anything. ABC made the call on its own &mdash; whether to protect its bottom line or because it knew it would lose in court. Notably, FCC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/media\/radio\/public-and-broadcasting#JOURNALISM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">regulations<\/a> prohibit news distortion or a hoax. A station&rsquo;s broadcast violates the FCC&rsquo;s rules if &ldquo;the station licensee knew that the information was false&rdquo; or if &ldquo;broadcasting the false information directly causes substantial public harm&hellip;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, the professional censorship class on the left has suddenly discovered the First Amendment. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/harryjsisson\/status\/1968447006155624679\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Harry Sisson<\/a> took to X to claim &ldquo;We are witnessing the most brazen attack on free speech in modern American history. Elon, Trump, and MAGA said they were free speech warriors. It&rsquo;s the exact opposite.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Matt Yglesias <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mattyglesias\/status\/1968667251747279000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote on an entire<\/a> article about &ldquo;MAGA&rsquo;s scary clampdown on free speech.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DavidAFrench\/status\/1968416136464073102\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David French<\/a> called Kimmel&rsquo;s removal a &ldquo;direct attack on free speech.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Vox&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/461887\/jimmy-kimmel-suspension-air-abc-charlie-kirk-nexstar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Zack Beauchamp<\/a> wrote Kimmel&rsquo;s removal is the &ldquo;most brazen attack on free speech yet.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>But where was this passion for &ldquo;free speech&rdquo; when ABC canceled the hit sitcom &ldquo;Roseanne&rdquo; in 2018 after Roseanne Barr <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/video\/roseanne-canceled-racist-tweets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">referred<\/a> to former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett as the offspring of the &ldquo;Muslim Brotherhood &amp; Planet of the Apes.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>The left cheered the cancellation, with French <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DavidAFrench\/status\/1001523761747816450\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">posting<\/a>: &ldquo;Roseanne canceled. Who could have possibly foreseen that a toxic person would be so toxic?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>No handwringing about censorship then. <\/p>\n<p>Where were the hysterics when President Donald Trump was <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/12\/12\/twitter-employees-found-trump-didnt-violate-policies-then-banned-him-anyway-with-corporate-medias-help\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">deplatformed<\/a> in 2021? The &ldquo;Twitter Files&rdquo; even revealed that Twitter employees acknowledged on internal channels that Trump&rsquo;s tweets after January 6 did not violate any policies &mdash; yet they banned him anyway.<\/p>\n<p>The left celebrated. <\/p>\n<p>Yglesias <a href=\"https:\/\/countercurrents.org\/2022\/08\/following-raid-in-trumps-home-the-far-right-calls-for-civil-war-in-the-u-s\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> had no problem with the silencing of free speech, posting &ldquo;It&rsquo;s kinda weird that deplatforming Trump just like completely worked with no visible downside whatsoever.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>French <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/_ellepurnell\/status\/1968693273645478304\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said<\/a> it was an &ldquo;actual exercise of liberty,&rdquo; and called the suppression of free speech &ldquo;appropriate.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Vox&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/culture\/22230847\/deplatforming-free-speech-controversy-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Aja Romano<\/a> reassured Americans that deplatforming Trump isn&rsquo;t a free speech issue. Rather, it is  &ldquo;effective at rousting extremists from mainstream internet spaces. It&rsquo;s not a violation of the First Amendment.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>When Megyn Kelly was fired by NBC in 2018 after Kelly <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/a84a7250b109411591ed6b976be800a0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">questioned<\/a> whether blackface Halloween costumes were always racist, The New Yorker&rsquo;s Doreen St. F&eacute;lix <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/culture\/culture-desk\/nbcs-firing-of-megyn-kelly-is-as-cynical-as-her-hiring-was\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mocked<\/a> her, writing: &ldquo;But Kelly is shrewd in plenty of other ways. In the next phase of her career, perhaps she will use her firing to fashion herself into a martyr for the so-called suppression of free speech.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>No defenders of free expression, no cries about censorship, just applause.<\/p>\n<p>And let&rsquo;s not forget the Biden administration&rsquo;s censorship machine, exposed in <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2025\/01\/22\/mark-zuckerberg-confirmed-the-supreme-court-ignored-direct-evidence-of-massive-federal-censorship-scheme\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Missouri v. Biden<\/em><\/a>  &mdash; later known as <em>Murthy v. Missouri<\/em>. The administration and federal agencies coerced and colluded directly and indirectly with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ga-poll-watcher-it-expert-non-trump-supporter-affidavit-sudden-surge-of-20000-mail-in-votes-for-biden-in-early-hours-on-nov\/\" title=\"GA Poll Watcher, IT Expert, Non-... Supporter Affidavit: Sudden Surge of 20,000 Mail-In-Votes For Biden In Early Hours On Nov\">social media companies<\/a> to censor things they didn&rsquo;t like on a litany of topics, such as Hunter Biden&rsquo;s laptop, election integrity, and Covid-19. In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg later admitted on <em>The Joe Rogan Experience<\/em> that Meta was complicit in the censorship.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of the Hunter Biden laptop, no one raised any alarms when conservatives were being locked out of their Twitter accounts for sharing the New York Post&rsquo;s bombshell story. In fact, left-wing media outlets gave cover to Big Tech, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/10\/15\/924150245\/twitter-and-facebook-limit-access-to-a-new-york-post-story-on-biden-s-son\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NPR<\/a> framing their reporting on the censorship as Twitter and Facebook merely limiting &ldquo;the reach of an article with unconfirmed claims&rdquo; before couching that with a note that so-called &ldquo;experts warn that social media platforms are full of misinformation and conspiracy theories.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>No one clutched the First Amendment when The Federalist&rsquo;s John Daniel Davidson <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/30\/twitter-locked-my-account-for-telling-the-truth-about-rachel-levine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">was locked<\/a> out of his Twitter account for stating the obvious fact that then-U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine is a man. It was near radio silence from the left when YouTube <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/08\/11\/youtube-will-censor-you-if-you-disagree-with-the-government-even-if-youre-in-the-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">censored<\/a> Sen. Rand Paul for disagreeing with the government about CDC guidance.<\/p>\n<p>So why the sudden panic now when a private company makes a determination on its own to pull a host for spreading egregious lies (and possibly violating the law)?<\/p>\n<p>Partially because it&rsquo;s one of their own. But even more so because, as Barack Obama once said, never let a crisis go to waste. The left doesn&rsquo;t <em>really<\/em> care about Kimmel or free speech. But by pretending that this is some unprecedented Trump crackdown, they get to smear Trump as a dictator or authoritarian to delegitimize his presidency. It&rsquo;s not about defending free speech, it&rsquo;s just about exploiting a convenient storyline to keep their narrative of Trump-is-authoritarian alive. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABC News pulled Jimmy Kimmel off air for lying about MAGA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2488182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Jimmy-Kimmel-new-pic-scaled-e1758210693266.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[6371,32311,43710,5965,37043],"class_list":["post-2488181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-censorship","tag-free-speech","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-leftists","tag-political-debate"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Jimmy-Kimmel-new-pic-scaled-e1758210693266.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488181"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2488185,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488181\/revisions\/2488185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2488182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}