Trump pressure on the media mounting

President Donald Trump’s pressure on media companies appears to be mounting.

On Wednesday, the Walt Disney Company pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air “indefinitely” from its ABC network after the host made comments linking the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to Trump’s MAGA movement.

The move is drawing comparisons to CBS’s cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in July and raising questions about the protection of free speech in a Trump-era broadcast environment.

“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,” Kimmel said during a monologue that aired Tuesday night.

“In between the finger-pointing there was grieving. On Friday the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this,” he continued, teeing up a clip of Trump on the White House lawn.

Trump was asked how he was holding up in the wake of Kirk’s death, to which he answered, “I think very good,” before pivoting to point out that construction had started on the new $200 million ballroom project.

“He’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel joked. “Demolition. Construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish. OK? And it didn’t just happen once.”

Kimmel has not been fired, but Disney heads wanted to speak with the host about what he should say when he goes back on the air, according to people familiar with the situation.

Kimmel, ABC and Disney are the latest target of Trump’s scrutiny of media companies, which has intensified during his second term marked by high-profile defamation lawsuits, the defunding of public broadcasters and regulatory interference from the Federal Communications Commission.

“An inexcusable act of political violence by one disturbed individual must never be exploited as justification for broader censorship and control,” Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, wrote in a social media post Wednesday. “This Administration is increasingly using the weight of government power to suppress lawful expression.”

Gomez has been outspoken about the FCC and Trump’s interactions with media companies. In late July, when government agency approved the merger of Paramount and Skydance, she wrote a statement of dissent, saying she was troubled by Paramount’s recent payment to settle a suit brought by Trump against Paramount-owned CBS over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can — and should-abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage,” she wrote at the time.

The suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” came amid statements from FCC Chair Brendan Carr that suggested ABC’s broadcast license was at risk because of the remarks.

In a podcast interview Wednesday, before ABC’s announcement, Carr said the FCC was “going to have remedies that we can look at” with regard to Kimmel’s comments.

“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

In August, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that ABC and NBC should lose their broadcast licenses for what he called “unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives.”

“Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated,” Trump said in the post.

Carr told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Thursday that Kimmel appeared to “mislead” the American public about facts regarding Charlie Kirk’s killing in the days leading up to his show’s suspension.

“The issue that arose here, where lots and lots of people were upset, was not a joke,” Carr said.

“It was not making fun,” Carr said. “It was appearing to directly mislead the American public about a significant fact that probably one of the most significant political events we’ve had in a long time, for the most significant political assassination we’ve seen in a long time.”

The show’s suspension also came after Nexstar Media Group said its ABC-affiliated stations would preempt Kimmel’s show “for the foreseeable future” beginning Wednesday.

Nexstar is seeking FCC approval for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. About 10% of the approximately 225 ABC affiliate stations are owned by Nexstar. Tegna owns about 5% of ABC’s affiliate stations.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman, Luke Fountain and Dan Mangan contributed to this report.