During a weekend in which he has raged at critics, Donald Trump lashed out at Seth Meyers, as he has done before, while calling on the NBC late-night host to be fired.
Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday, “NBC’s Seth Meyers is suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). He was viewed last night in an uncontrollable rage, likely due to the fact that his ‘show’ is a Ratings DISASTER. Aside from everything else, Meyers has no talent, and NBC should fire him, IMMEDIATELY!”
Soon after Trump’s post on Saturday, Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, reposted the president’s angry message to his X account.
Carr did not add any comment on Trump’s post, but his amplification of the president’s call for NBC to fire a late-night critic follows the FCC chairman’s warning to ABC stations in September over Jimmy Kimmel, whose comments about Charlie Kirk led to the network pulling the late-night house from the schedule for several days. Two major station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair, said they would not air the show. Nexstar is seeking FCC approval of its acquisition of Tegna.
A spokesperson for NBC did not immediately return a request for comment. Meyers has not yet responded.
Trump went after Meyers earlier this month, calling him “the least talented person to ‘perform’ live in the history of television” and a “truly deranged lunatic.”
“In general, I try to live by the New Yorker’s creed: When someone is ranting and raving about you, ignore them. Chances are, they’re just going to move on and rave about something else. But there’s one thing I simply have to address,” Meyers said on the show. “You can say I’m untalented. You can say I’m deranged. But I’m not the one who talks endlessly about catapults on aircraft carriers!”
Carr’s warning about Kimmel, followed by him being pulled from the air, led to a backlash to the backlash, with Disney+ subscribers canceling their subscriptions.
Days later, Carr claimed that he was not threatening stations with losing their license if Kimmel was not fired. But even some Republicans took it that way, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) comparing the FCC chairman’s comments to something a mafia boss would say.
On his late-night show earlier this month, Kimmel, in his monologue, Kimmel said, “We had 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 with everything they can to score political points from it.”
Two days later, Carr, appearing on Benny Johnson’s podcast, called Kimmel’s remark “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
In the Benny Johnson interview, Carr did bring up the prospect of Kimmel being fired and the possible revocation of station licenses.
He said: “Look, there’s calls for Kimmel to be fired. You could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. Again, the FCC is going to have remedies that we can look at. We may ultimately be called to be a judge on that.”
Cruz has said that he plans to introduce the the Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Outreach to Network Expression (JAWBONE) Act. In response to what he says were Biden administration efforts to pressure tech companies, the legislation would “provide a robust right to redress when Americans are targeted by their own government,” Cruz said at a hearing last month.