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Kimmel battle is far from over

Jimmy Kimmel will be back on ABC tonight — but not in every market.

With Sinclair refusing to air Kimmel's show on its ABC-affiliated stations, and Nexstar not yet commenting on its plans, this free speech tug-of-war is far from over. And as CNN's Jake Tapper said last night, "it doesn't end" with Kimmel.

MAGA media commentators are raging against ABC's parent Disney, with some influential pundits publicly pressing the Trump administration to take action against the company, calling to mind FCC chair Brendan Carr's "We can do this the easy way or the hard way" line from last week. 

Any such action would stretch well beyond the usual bounds of government regulation, but President Trump has been crossing those lines ever since returning to the Oval Office, as Disney CEO Bob Iger well knows.

That's why I am keeping a close eye on the simmering MAGA anger about ABC as Kimmel returns to the airwaves. It's palpable on sites like X, where Fox News contributor and The Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway told her fans last night that "DISNEY LOATHES YOU."

Hemingway's posts showed how pro-Trump media figures have adopted a very different interpretation of Kimmel's September 15 monologue than other viewers. Kimmel's "malicious lie" was "designed to protect left-wing violence and further harm Americans and our values," Hemingway wrote.

Kimmel actually said the MAGA movement was trying to score political points by trying to prove that the suspect accused of killing Charlie Kirk was not a Trump supporter. Then the host ridiculed one of Trump's comments in the wake of Kirk's murder.

Conservative media watchdogs clipped the moment from ABC's air and publicized it, leading Carr to publicly condemn Kimmel and invoke the FCC's power over local station licenses. We all know what happened next. ABC's decision to sideline Kimmel was a momentary triumph for the right-wing activists who want to win cultural as well as political victories during Trump's term. 

Kimmel's return is thus a rebuke to those same activists – while also, in the words of PEN America, a "vindication for free speech."

MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson, who egged on Carr last week, wrote on X that Kirk's Turning Point USA organization "views Jimmy Kimmel's false claims about Charlie Kirk's assassin as an open and vicious attack on the organization and its activists."

Shortly after ABC announced Kimmel's comeback, OutKick founder and Trump ally Clay Travis said on Fox that the government should flex its muscles to Disney. 

Noting ESPN's pending deal with the NFL, Travis said, "I think the Trump administration needs to look aggressively at that potential acquisition of the NFL Network and say, 'Wait a minute, is Disney/ABC really trying to speak to all of America? If they won't do it on a late-night show, will they do it with sports? I think those are real questions that deserve to be asked."

The NFL deal requires the Trump DOJ's sign-off, but that's supposed to be an antitrust matter, not a review of whether ABC is "trying to speak to all of America."

However, for pro-Trump influencers who have resented the liberal bent of late-night TV for years, and despised Kimmel for just as long, the use of government power to punish perceived enemies is not something to be condemned; it's something to be exploited.

Ryan Faughnder of the LA Times said it best this morning: "Disney wanted to be done with politics. But politics wasn’t done with Disney. It never is."

What will Nexstar do?

Nexstar was the first station group to come out publicly against Kimmel last Wednesday. Nexstar is also the best example of a media company that feels compelled to curry favor with Trump right now, as it needs the FCC to approve its pending merger with Tegna. So will the station group air Kimmel's show tonight? That's TBA.

Nexstar's local ABC-affiliated stations are in the dark; some of the company's local newsrooms struggled to figure out how to cover ABC's announcement yesterday, since they didn't know if their own stations were going to air the show or not.

More broadly, as I said on "AC360," I view this moment as yet another example of 1) the slow unspooling of broadcast TV, which is becoming less and less "broad," and 2) the red-blue divide, which is fracturing seemingly everything, even TV schedules.

Let them black out?

Andrew Kirell writes: Do Nexstar and Sinclair really have a lot of sway over Kimmel's survival? "For those curious, Sinclair ABC stations reach 13.6 percent of the country and Nexstar is 8.6 percent," the WSJ's Joe Flint noted. Many of those stations are in small or mid-sized markets with more conservative political leanings — not exactly Kimmel strongholds. The bulk of his ratings and ad value comes from larger, liberal-leaning markets. So there's a scenario where, say, the Sinclair stations black out Kimmel for a bit while Disney still runs him in markets where he rates.

 >> A further thought bubble: In the streaming age, when almost everyone can watch Kimmel's show on demand, the choices of local stations arguably matter less than ever. 

 >> Plus, as veteran media reporter Paul Farhi pointed out, affiliates like Sinclair "can pre-empt a network show a limited number of times (depends on the contract), but then is in breach of its affiliate agreement and faces penalties or cancellation. So Sinclair is likely on a short leash here." Again, the slow unspooling of broadcast TV...

'I don't think it ends with Kimmel'

That's what Tapper said during a visit to "Late Night with Seth Meyers." Tapper called last week's domino effect "the most direct infringement by the government on free speech that I've seen in my lifetime."

"We'll see what happens when they come for Comcast" (NBC's parent) and we'll see what happens when they come for Warner Bros. Discovery" (CNN's parent), Tapper said to Meyers. "Maybe you and I will be drawing comic books."

Notable quotes and notes

 >> CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister confirmed that Kimmel will address ~all of this~ on air tonight. Here's our full story.

 >> "At least in the short term, the 'failing Jimmy Kimmel' is going to have the most-watched and talked-about show on television," Bill Carter writes in his latest must-read piece for LateNighter.

 >> BTW, a few people have asked me about the ratings for the "Celebrity Family Feud" reruns that replaced Kimmel last week. While the data can be sliced and diced in a number of different ways, my best sense is that "Family Feud" did not match Kimmel's audience.

 >> Stephen Colbert's joyful reaction to Kimmel's return overnight: "Once more, I am the only martyr in late night! Wait. Unless... CBS, you want to announce anything? Still no? Right, 'cause the money thing. I forgot."

 >> Jon Stewart: "That campaign that you all launched, pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of 'Only Murders in the Building,' that really worked. Congratulations!"

 >> Media critic Richard Prince calls ABC's restoration of Kimmel "one sign of hope for those who fear for the future of media freedom under the Trump administration."

 >> Kamala Harris told Rachel Maddow: "We saw the power of the people over the last few days, and it spoke volumes, and it moved a decision in the right direction." Maddow was blunter about it: "When we fight, we win."

WSJ lauds Cruz's principled position

In an editorial titled "Ted Cruz's finest hour," the WSJ editorial board wrote, "Most Republicans are afraid of uttering even a syllable of disapproval about the Trump administration, so kudos to Ted Cruz for noticing the danger from Brendan Carr's use of regulatory threats to stifle free speech." NBC's Sahil Kapur observed that "more senators are speaking up" now, following Cruz's lead...

MEANWHILE...

FCC chair denies he ever threatened ABC

Liam Reilly writes: After Disney announced Kimmel's return, FCC chair Brendan Carr directed reporters looking for a quote to an interview he gave earlier that day at the Concordia Summit in NYC.

During that sit-down, Carr denied he ever threatened to revoke ABC affiliate licenses if the network didn't punish Kimmel. Such threats, he said, "did not happen in any way, shape or form." Carr accused Democrats of "a campaign of projection and distortion" about the FCC's actions and said that "Disney on its own made the business decision not to have him air for some period of time."

 >> Let's give Tyler Tone of FIRE the last word on this: "If anyone knows what Brendan Carr is doing right now is unconstitutional jawboning — it's Brendan Carr." Check out Tone's column here.

Just a few more ABC notes 

 >> Kim Masters' column for Puck is the best thing I read overnight about what Iger and Co. were thinking these past few days. (Puck)

 >> Once "The View" reacted on-air to the Kimmel suspension yesterday, the Trump White House felt the need to respond, calling Kimmel a "no-talent loser" and the "View" hosts "a collection of irrelevant has-beens and never-beens." (EW)

 >> Zohran Mamdani withdrew from a town hall with the ABC-owned NYC station to protest the Kimmel suspension. "We've reached out to WABC to reschedule the town hall," he said after Disney reversed course. (AP)

IN OTHER NEWS...

Fox criticizes Pentagon 'pledge'

I led yesterday's Reliable with the Pentagon's troubling new rules for the press, and asked, "Will Fox News and other Trump-aligned outlets sign the pledge?" 

Judging from this "Special Report" segment, Fox has some serious concerns about it. Bret Baier explained the "mounting backlash" last night, then asked Fox contributor Jonathan Turley for an assessment, and Turley was unsparing. "What they're basically saying is that if you publish anything that's not in the press release, is not the official statement of the Pentagon, you could be held responsible under this policy," he said. "That is going to create a stranglehold on the free press."

 >> The Intercept's Nick Turse spoke with several anonymous "current Pentagon officials" who blasted the new policy. One of the sources likened it to "policies seen in some of the most repressive and unstable nations on the planet."

Fox skates past the Homan scandal

Yesterday, Fox barely mentioned MSNBC's bombshell reporting that Trump "border czar" Tom Homan was recorded in 2024 accepting a bag stuffed with $50,000 from undercover FBI agents in exchange for promising to steer government contracts — and Trump's DOJ killed the probe.

The scandal received a skeptical mention during the early afternoon and then a news brief during Bret Baier's hour. In prime, Laura Ingraham chatted with Homan and only asked him about the reporting at the very end. "I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal," Homan said before pivoting to his credentials and the media's "hit piece after hit piece after hit piece." Ingraham did not press him for details at all.

WSJ moves to dismiss Trump suit

The Wall Street Journal "filed a motion Monday to dismiss President Donald Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit" over the paper's scoop about Trump's alleged letter in a Jeffrey Epstein birthday book, ABC's James Hill reports. "The motion contends that the article is true," and further, "the article is not defamatory."

 >> Key quote from the filing: "There is nothing defamatory about a person sending a bawdy note to a friend, and the Article cannot damage Plaintiff's reputation as a matter of law."

Today's new nonfiction releases 

In addition to "107 Days" by Kamala Harris, there are some big buzzy book releases today: "Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis" by Priscilla Presley, "The Biology of Trauma" by Aimie Apigian and Gabor Maté, "Heartbeats: A Memoir" by Björn Borg, and "Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse" by Luke Kemp, to name a few...

Briefly…

>> Will Sommer has a (depressing) look at the bizarre Kirk conspiracy theories coming from within MAGA media. (The Bulwark)

 >> "ESPN aims to preserve ‘Inside the NBA’ format when show debuts on network in October," Richard Deitsch reports. (NYT)

 >> Matt Frucci is the new executive producer of "NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas." (Deadline)

 >> Congrats to two friends of Reliable, Brian Lowry and Natalie Korach, who are joining Oliver Darcy over at Status. (THR)

Today's tech talk

 >> The DOJ "said on Monday that Google should be broken up to address its monopoly in advertising technology, kicking off a hearing that could reshape the technology giant’s power online," David McCabe and Cecilia Kang report. (NYT)

 >> "It sounds like Bluesky is getting serious about giving some users the boot, with the company saying it will be doing more to 'enforce our moderation policies to better cultivate a space for healthy conversations,'" Anthony Ha writes. (TechCrunch)

 >> “Major record labels have escalated their lawsuit against Suno, alleging that the AI startup knowingly pirated songs from YouTube to train its generative AI music models,” Jess Weatherbed reports. (The Verge)

 >> Lionsgate's partnership with AI startup Runway to "train the studio’s library of films with the ultimate goal of creating shows and movies using AI" should serve "as a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of embracing a technology too early," Roger Cheng and Jeremy Fuster write. (TheWrap)

This edition of Reliable Sources was edited by Andrew Kirell and produced with Liam Reilly. Email us your feedback and tips here.