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MISSED KIMMEL’S RETURN? HERE’S A TRANSCRIPT OF HIS MONOLOGUE  
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Jimmy Kimmel, Luciana Lopez
September 24, 2025
CNN Business
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_ Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late night show Tuesday after his
suspension amid pressure from the FCC and the Trump administration,
and counter pressure against Disney and ABC-TV and a massive consumer
boycott over denial of free speech in the country _

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned Tuesday after a temporary
suspension amid Trump administration pressure. , Photo: Randy
Holmes/Disney

 

Jimmy Kimmel returned to his late night show
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Tuesday night after a suspension amid pressure by the Trump
administration and a furor over Kimmel’s remarks about the killer of
conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Kimmel delivered an opening monologue – occasionally choking up –
that ranged across everything from jokes to the importance of the
First Amendment.

Here’s what Kimmel said.

“Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted, if you’re just
joining us, we’re preempting your regularly scheduled encore episode
of ‘Celebrity Family Feud’ to bring you this special report. I’m
happy to be here tonight with you. Please be seated. I’m not sure
who had a weirder 48 hours: me or the CEO of Tylenol. It’s been
overwhelming. I’ve heard from a lot of people over the last six
days. I’ve heard from all the people in the world over the last six
days. Anyone I have ever met has reached out 10 or 11 times. Weird
characters from my past, or the guy who fired me from my first radio
job in Seattle, where we are not airing tonight by the way! Sorry,
Seattle. His name is Larry.”

“In 1989, Larry tried to force me to do a bit called ‘Jokes for
donuts’ where people would call in with a joke and I would give them
donuts. I refused to do it and then I made a lot of fun of Larry for
suggesting it, and eventually Larry fired me and I had to move back in
with my parents. But even he wrote in to cheer me up. Thank you,
Larry.”

“And I want to thank everyone who checked in. It would take all week
to list all of them, but some that I do especially want to mention are
my fellow late night talk show hosts: my friend Stephen Colbert, who
found himself in this predicament, my friends Jon Stewart, Seth
Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, Conan O’Brien, James Corden,
Arsenio, Kathy, Wanda, Chelsea. Even Jay reached out.”

“I heard from late night hosts in other countries, from Ireland and
from Germany. The guy in Germany offered me a job. Can you imagine?
This country has become so authoritarian the Germans are like, “Come
here. Cut loose.” My boyhood idols Howard Stern and David Letterman
were very considerate and kind. And I feel honored to be part of a
group of people that knows what goes into doing a show like this.”

“And I also want to thank all of you. Thanks to (all) who supported
our show, cared enough to do something about it, to make your voices
heard so that mine could be heard. I will never forget it. And maybe
weirdly, maybe most of all, I want to thank the people who don’t
support my show and what I believe but support my right to share those
beliefs anyway, people who I never would have imagined like Ben
Shapiro, Clay Travis, Candace Owens, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, even
my old pal Ted Cruz, who, believe it or not, said something very
beautiful on my behalf.”

Ted Cruz video plays: ‘I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled
that he was fired.’

“Oh, wait,” Kimmel said. “No, not that. The other part.”

Ted Cruz video plays: ‘But let me tell you, if the government gets
in the business of saying we don’t like what you, the media, have
said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say
what we like, that will end up bad for conservatives.’

“I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is
right,” Kimmel continued. “He’s absolutely right. This affects
all of us, including him. I mean, think about it. If Ted Cruz can’t
speak freely, then he can’t cast spells on the Smurfs. Even though I
don’t agree with many of those people on most subjects – some of
the things they say even make me want to throw up – it takes courage
for them to speak out against this administration, and they did, and
they deserve credit for it. And thanks for telling your followers that
our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say
on television and that we have to stand up to it.”

 
Kimmel's return Tuesday followed days of debate over free speech and
government censorship.  (Photo: Randy Holmes/Disney)
“I’ve been hearing a lot about what I need to say and do tonight.
And the truth is I don’t think what I have to say is going to make
much of a difference. If you like me, you like me. If you don’t, you
don’t. I have no illusions about changing anyone’s mind. But I do
want to make something clear because it’s important to me as a
human. And that is you understand that it was never my intention to
make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t, I don’t think
there’s anything funny about it.”

“I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed sending
love to his family and asking for compassion and I meant it and I
still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the
actions of what … was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That
was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make.”

“But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear
or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger, I get why
you’re upset. If the situation was reversed, there’s a good chance
I’d have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members
on the other side who I love and remain close to even though we
don’t agree on politics at all. I don’t think the murderer who
shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who
believed violence was a solution, and it isn’t it, ever.”

“And also selfishly I am a person who gets a lot of threats. I get
many ugly and scary threats against my life, my wife, my kids, my
co-workers because of what I choose to say. And I know those threats
don’t come from the kind of people on the right who I know and love.
So that’s what I wanted to say on that subject.”

“But I don’t want to make this about me, because – and I know
this is what people say when they make things about them, but I really
don’t – this show, this show is not important. What is important
is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like
this. I’ve had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians
and talk show hosts from countries like Russia, countries in the
Middle East who tell me they would get thrown in prison for making fun
of those in power. And worse than being thrown in prison. They know
how lucky we are here. Our freedom to speak is what they admire most
about this country.”

“And that’s something I’m embarrassed to say I took for granted
until they pulled my friend Stephen off the air and tried to coerce
the affiliates who run our show in the cities that you live in to take
my show off the air. That’s not legal. That’s not American. That
is un-American and it is so dangerous.”

“I want you to think about this. Should the government be allowed to
regulate which podcasts the cell phone companies and Wi-Fi providers
are allowed to let you download to make sure they serve the public
interest? You think that sounds crazy? Ten years ago, this sounded
crazy. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, telling an American
company, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way’ and that
‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on
Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead,’
in addition to being a direct violation of the First Amendment, is not
a particularly intelligent threat to make in public.”

“Ted Cruz said he sounded like a mafioso. Although, I don’t know.
If you want to hear a mob boss make a threat like that, you have to
hide a microphone in a deli and park outside in a van with a tape
recorder all night long. This genius said it on a podcast. Brendan
Carr is the most embarrassing car Republicans have embraced since this
one (image of Cybertruck painted with the American flag and
‘Trump’). And that’s saying something. The FCC has a tradition
of meddling where they shouldn’t under many administrations, but it
wasn’t always like this. There was an FCC commissioner back in 2022
who worked under Joe Biden who was spot on. He wrote, ‘President
Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most
important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while
using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why
people in influential positions have always targeted it for
censorship.’”

 
In his return on Tuesday night, Kimmel repeatedly emphasized the
importance of free speech, a free press and the First Amendment.
 (Photo: Randy Holmes/Disney)
“You know who wrote that? FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who later
was appointed chairman of the FCC by this former crusader for free
speech (Trump video plays): ‘If we don’t have free speech, then we
just don’t have a free country. It’s as simple as that. If this
most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our
rights and liberties will topple just like dominoes. One by one,
they’ll go down.’

“That was also in 2022,” Kimmel said.

“And I wonder how did that guy turn into this guy?” (video plays):
Interviewer: Who would you like to see replace Kimmel on late
night?’ Trump: ‘A lot of people, anybody could replace him. Guy
had no talent. Kimmel had, look, he was fired. He had no talent.
He’s a whack job, but he had no talent. And more importantly than
talent he had no – because a lot of people have no talent (but) they
get ratings – but he had no ratings.’

“Well, I do tonight,” Kimmel said. “Thank you. You almost, you
almost have to feel sorry for him. He tried, did his best to cancel
me. Instead, he forced millions of people to watch the show. That
backfired bigly. He might have to release the Epstein files to
distract us from this now. Now, a lot of people have been asking me if
there are conditions for my return to the air, and there is one.
Disney has asked me to read the following statement, and I’ve agreed
to do it. Here we go. ‘To reactivate your Disney Plus and Hulu
account open the Disney Plus app on your smart TV or TV-connected
device.’”

“I’ve been fortunate to work at a company that has allowed me to
do the show the way we want to do it for almost 23 years. I’ve done
almost 4,000 shows on ABC. And over that time, the people who run this
network have allowed me to evolve and to stretch the boundaries of
what was once traditional for a late night talk show, even when it
made them uncomfortable, which I do a lot. Every night, they’ve
defended my right to poke fun at our leaders and to advocate for
subjects that I think are important by allowing me to use their
platform. And I am very grateful for that.”

“With that said, I was not happy when they pulled me off the air on
Wednesday. I did not agree with that decision and I told them that and
we had many conversations. I shared my point of view. They shared
theirs. We talked it through and at the end, even though they didn’t
have to – they really didn’t have to, this is a giant company, we
have short attention spans and I am a tiny part of the Disney
Corporation – they welcomed me back on the air and I thank them for
that because I know that unfortunately and, I think, unjustly, this
puts them at risk.”

“The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to
see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs.
Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he
can’t take a joke. He was somehow able to squeeze Colbert out of
CBS. Then he turned his sights on me, and now he’s openly rooting
for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers and the hundreds of
Americans who work for their shows who don’t make millions of
dollars. And I hope that if that happens or if there’s even any hint
of that happening, you will be 10 times as loud as you were this week.
We have to speak out against this because he’s not stopping.”

“And it’s not just comedy. He’s gunning for our journalists,
too. He’s suing them. He’s bullying them. Over the weekend, his
Foxy friend Pete Hegseth announced a new policy that requires
journalists with Pentagon press credentials to sign a pledge,
promising not to report information that hasn’t been explicitly
authorized for release. That includes unclassified information. They
want to pick and choose what the news is. I know that’s not as
interesting as muscling a comedian, but it’s so important to have a
free press, and it is nuts that we aren’t paying more attention to
it.”

“Walter Cronkite must be spinning in his grave right now. (He’s
dead, right?) Look, I never imagined I would be in a situation like
this. I barely paid attention in school. But one thing I did learn
from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin and Howard Stern is that a
government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like
is anti-American. That’s anti-American.”

“And I am so glad we have some solidarity on that from the right and
the left and from those in the middle like Joe Rogan. Maybe the silver
lining from this is we found one thing we can agree on, and maybe
we’ll even find another one. Maybe we can get a little bit closer
together. We do agree on a lot of things. We agree on keeping our
children safe from guns, on reproductive rights for women, Social
Security, affordable health care, pediatric cancer research. These are
all things that most Americans support. Let’s stop letting these
politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.”

“There was a moment over the weekend, a very beautiful moment. I
don’t know if you saw this on Sunday. Erika Kirk forgave the man who
shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should
follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus as I do, there it
was. That’s, that’s it. A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from
a grieving widow. It touched me deeply, and I hope it touches many,
and if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry
forward, I hope it can be that and not this. So, thank you for
listening and I’ll have, I’ll have more to say when we come
back.”

* Jimmy Kimmel
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* Free Speech
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* First Amendment
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* The First Amendment
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* democracy
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* Disney
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* abc
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* ABC-TV
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* Sinclair Broadcast Group
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* Nexstar
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* comedy
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* Boycott
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* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* FCC
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* Charlie Kirk
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* television
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* dictatorship
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* Authoritarianism
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* Fascism
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* SAG-AFTRA
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* Writers Guild of America
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* AFM
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