Government Threats against ABC Are Unconstitutional and Violate Rights

by Nicholas Provenzo

Sep 19, 2025

Earlier this week, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was abruptly suspended by ABC after the late-night host made remarks about Donald Trump and the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In his monologue, Kimmel said:

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately 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.”

He went on to mock Trump’s public response:

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he [Trump] called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK.”1

Whatever one thinks of Kimmel’s tone, his speech violated no one’s rights. What followed did. On September 17, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr called Kimmel’s comments “some of the sickest conduct possible” and warned that ABC and its affiliates “can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”2

That same day, Nexstar Media Group, which owns thirty-two ABC affiliates, announced that it would no longer air Kimmel’s show, calling his remarks “offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse.”3 Soon after, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! indefinitely.

It makes no difference whether ABC acted on the FCC’s threat. The threat itself is a brazen violation of rights.

The Principle at Stake

The principle could not be clearer: In a free society, government must never use force—including the threat of force—to silence speech (excluding speech that constitutes the use of force, such as fraud or threats of imminent violence). The First Amendment enshrines this principle in law, protecting speech that criticizes public figures, political movements, and even the president himself. Only a few narrow categories—such as incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, or fraud—fall outside its protection.

From a philosophic perspective, the principle protecting speech runs deeper still. Rights are not permissions granted by government but moral absolutes grounded in man’s nature. The right to speak does not depend on agreement or approval. It protects the peaceful expression of ideas—whether brilliant or foolish, noble or vile—from coercion. To attack that right is to attack reason itself.

Applying the Principle

Kimmel’s monologue is political speech—satire aimed at the president and his supporters. U.S. Supreme Court precedent makes clear that this kind of expression lies at the heart of the First Amendment.

In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the court held that even false statements about public officials are protected unless made with “actual malice,” because debate on public issues must be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
In Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988), the court protected a grotesque parody of a public figure, underscoring that offensive satire is still protected speech.
And in Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963), the court struck down a Rhode Island commission that sent “advisory notices” to booksellers warning them against carrying “objectionable” publications. Even though no law directly banned the books, the court saw the notices for what they were: thinly veiled threats of prosecution. The intimidation itself was unconstitutional because it chilled lawful expression.

The court’s reasoning is directly on point. When the FCC chair warned ABC that its broadcast license could be jeopardized if it aired Kimmel, that was the modern equivalent of the “advisory notice” in Bantam Books. No official decree or statute was necessary; the threat alone was an act of censorship.

What If the Affiliates Would Have Acted Anyway?

Some may argue that ABC or its affiliates might have pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! regardless of the FCC’s threats. Perhaps—but once government pressure enters the equation, the calculus changes. The Supreme Court made this clear in Bantam Books v. Sullivan: Even the hint of official retaliation contaminates private editorial choices. Whether or not the affiliates might have acted on their own, the state’s threat was a threat, promising “additional work” for government regulators aimed squarely at curtailing speech perceived as hostile to the administration.

That is why the affiliates’ decision was both predictable and cowardly; predictable, because most corporations will bend to minimize risk when regulators rattle their sabers; and cowardly, because once the government sought to silence speech, the affiliates had a moral obligation to resist, not to collaborate. Their capitulation now sends a message to every other content creator on their airwaves: if you cross the administration, don’t expect us to defend you. That question alone—whether an employer will stand behind its talent against government intimidation—is the very definition of a chilling effect.

Modern Parallels: “Jawboning” and Social Media

Government efforts to pressure platforms into suppressing speech—so-called jawboning—test the core logic of Bantam Books: Officials may not use intimidation to achieve what they cannot lawfully do directly under the First Amendment. In Missouri v. Biden (argued at the Supreme Court as Murthy v. Missouri), plaintiffs alleged that the White House, CDC, and FBI leaned on Facebook and Twitter/X to bury content about COVID-19 and the 2020 election; platforms often complied under the shadow of possible regulation, antitrust action, or §230 changes. The Fifth Circuit agreed that indirect pressure and implied threats can amount to unconstitutional coercion.4 The Supreme Court vacated on standing grounds—without rejecting that principle. As Justice Alito emphasized in dissent, Bantam Books remains controlling: Government may not do indirectly what it is forbidden to do directly.5

The parallel to Kimmel is striking. In each case, government actors sought to accomplish indirectly—through threats and pressure—what they could not lawfully do directly: suppress speech.

The Violation of Principle: Rule of Law vs. Rule of Men

From a constitutional perspective, the violation is clear: Government officials threatened to wield state power against speech they disliked. This is not the marketplace of ideas at work, nor is it private criticism. It is the use of coercion, backed by the force of law, to chill political expression.

From a philosophical perspective, the danger is even deeper. A free society rests on the rule of law—laws that are definite, objective, and knowable in advance, so that citizens may act without fear of arbitrary punishment. When officials threaten to “find something” against a network that refuses to silence a critic, they substitute the rule of men: the arbitrary whim of those in power. Under such a regime, individuals no longer know where they stand. Their rights become conditional on avoiding the displeasure of rulers.

And note the special danger here: The speech being targeted was criticism of the administration itself. This is not random regulation; it is the government wielding power to silence those who mock or condemn it. That strikes at the very heart of the First Amendment. The Framers designed the First Amendment precisely so that political power could never be shielded from public challenge.

Free Speech, Reason, and Evasion

The right to freedom of speech is not a favor from the state but the moral and legal prerogative to express ideas regardless of what anyone—including the government—feels about them. Because we survive by thinking—by grasping facts and acting on them—we must be free to state, challenge, and refine ideas. Against this need for freedom, censorship is force: muscle muzzling the mind.

That is why censorship is so destructive. It doesn’t just suppress an opponent; it poisons the very process of rational thought. Once force is introduced into the realm of ideas, persuasion is replaced with fear, inquiry with silence. To threaten ABC for Kimmel’s ridicule of the powerful is not only unconstitutional but also anti-life—because it seeks to silence the mind.

Conclusion

Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue may or may not be funny, insightful, or appropriate. That’s irrelevant. It was political speech aimed at those in power, and government officials threatened ABC because of it. The First Amendment forbids the government from using threats to punish or deter speech. And this is a clear-cut instance of the government doing just that.

Ideally, the FCC should be abolished. That is a subject for another day.

“Disney’s ABC Yanks Jimmy Kimmel Live! off Air after Remarks about Kirk,” Reuters, September 18, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/disneys-abc-yanks-jimmy-kimmel-live-off-air-after-remarks-about-kirk-2025-09-18.

Michael Gold, “Disney’s ABC Suspends Jimmy Kimmel Live! after Remarks about Kirk,” Politico, September 17, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/17/disney-jimmy-kimmel-live-kirk-00570355.

“ABC Suspends Jimmy Kimmel Live! Indefinitely over Remarks about Charlie Kirk,” Associated Press News, September 17, 2025.

Missouri v. Biden, 83 F.4th 350 (5th Cir. 2023), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca5/23-30445/23-30445-2023-10-03.html.

Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. (2024), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-411/.