{"id":240200,"date":"2025-09-20T00:43:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240200\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T00:43:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:43:09","slug":"disney-jimmy-kimmel-continue-talks-what-do-conservatives-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/240200\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney & Jimmy Kimmel Continue Talks: What Do Conservatives Think?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn 2021, Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a \u201cmoist, gelatinous tubeworm<\/a> whose elastic-band pants are filled with an inky discharge every time he speaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tImagine then that Cruz\u2019s comments, particularly his riff on Goodfellas, earlier Friday concerning Disney\u2019s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> could help pave the way for Disney<\/a> to bring the late-night host back to ABC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney and Kimmel are talking; discussions were held Thursday and Deadline understands more conversations were taking place today.<\/p>\n

\n\tDisney is clearly in a difficult situation. They will likely lose the talent community if they don\u2019t allow Kimmel back on the air<\/a>, and many liberals will continue to cancel their Hulu and Disney+ subscriptions <\/a>and scratch their annual trips to Walt Disney World.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut if they return Kimmel to ABC without a full-throated apology over his comments about Charlie Kirk\u2019s alleged killer<\/a>, which the comedian is seemingly unwilling to give, MAGA supporters will be apoplectic and rail against the corporation in a way that could make the \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d issue seem quaint.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are plenty of people who believe that Kimmel shouldn\u2019t apologize, that what he said was taken out of context, amplified by the right-wing media<\/a>, and merely a stalking horse to allow FCC chair Brendan Carr to threaten Disney<\/a>, knowing full well it will have NFL-shaped business<\/a> in front of the Trump administration, and embolden right-leaning local station groups that similarly are trying to complete their own multibillion-dollar deals<\/a> that require legislative changes.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut some insiders believe that the Mouse House could take cover provided by the likes of Cruz, Mike Pence, Tucker Carlson and the editorial board of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruz today said Carr, who he stressed he likes, was using tactics \u201cright out of\u00a0Goodfellas.\u201d <\/a>Speaking on his Verdict podcast, he said that firing Kimmel would mean that Democrats, when they next enter the White House, could use the precedent to silence conservatives.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly, and that is dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cIt might feel good right now to threaten Jimmy Kimmel. But when it is used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCruz and Kimmel have sparred over the years, but Cruz also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a> in 2016 and played the comedian in a 1-on-1 basketball game \u2013 nicknamed the Blobfish Basketball Classic \u2013 in 2018.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Blobfish Basketball Classic on \u2018Jimmy Kimmel Live!\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRandy Holmes\/Disney\/Getty<\/p>\n

\n\tCruz is also not just any Republican senator; he is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the body that has oversight over the FCC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFormer Vice President Mike Pence also entered the debate. He said he \u201cwould have preferred that the chairman of the FCC had not weighed in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSimilarly, the WSJ came out against the move. In an opinion column, the paper\u2019s editorial staff wrote<\/a>, \u201cThe political cycle of using government to punish opponents is taking the country into dark corners that will result in less freedom, and less free speech, for all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKimmel\u2019s comments Monday associating Charlie Kirk\u2019s killer with the \u2018MAGA gang\u2019 were false, callous and stupid. But they weren\u2019t inciting violence, and in a free society they shouldn\u2019t be cause for the government to push someone off the airwaves. Compared to the malevolent garbage on social media about Kirk and his killer, Mr. Kimmel\u2019s words were only mildly offensive,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven Carlson has warned about the death of free speech. Speaking a day before the Kimmel news, the former Fox News host said, \u201cYou hope Charlie Kirk\u2019s death won\u2019t be used by a group we now call bad actors to create a society that was the opposite of the one he worked to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel\u2019s former Man Show co-host Adam Carolla, who has leaned right with his politics, also defended his friend.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know Jimmy to be a very good guy and a generous guy,\u201d he said on his podcast. \u201cWe disagree politically, but who cares? We disagree on pizza toppings as well, but it doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this comes as Disney tries to find the best route forward. There is a growing sense of optimism within Disney that they will navigate their way out of this situation, but it\u2019s not clear what that looks like for Kimmel, who is keen not to put his entire staff out of work, particularly so soon after the writers and actors strike shut them down in 2023. <\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel isn\u2019t speaking, but some others in his orbit are. David Letterman<\/a>, who knows a thing or two about taking on his corporate owners in late-night, said Thursday that he received a text from Kimmel and he joked he was \u201csitting up in bed taking nourishment.\u201d \u201cHe\u2019s going to be fine,\u201d he added. Carolla said he also received a message from Kimmel, saying it was \u201cstrange times out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBill Simmons, an old friend of Kimmel\u2019s who worked on JKL! in the early years (and shares a manager in James \u201cBabydoll\u201d Dixon), talked about the situation during the opening 13 minutes of his eponymous podcast. He said he had not talked to Kimmel. But he became more optimistic over the last day or two that Disney may find a way to bring him back on the air.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was such a groundswell against Disney this week that I actually went from thinking there was no chance this show was going to come back. I thought Jimmy, rightfully so, was just going to dig in and maybe that was going to be it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut maybe this flips. Maybe what Disney is realizing is that at some point you\u2019ve got to stand for something. At some point, you\u2019ve got to stand by a person who has been one of the best people you\u2019ve had for 20 plus years \u2026 all he\u2019s done to elevate your company, who has come through time and time again in all these different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSimmons may not have talked to Kimmel directly when he said that, but as someone who has known him for nearly 25 years, he is likely better placed at reading the room than many commentators.<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel and Disney are unlikely to share any updates over the weekend, unless things go horribly wrong, so Steve Harvey may be back with some more repeats of Celebrity Family Feud<\/a> next week in ABC\u2019s 11:35 p.m. slot. But this will get settled one way or the other soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2021, Jimmy Kimmel called Texas Sen. Ted Cruz a \u201cmoist, gelatinous tubeworm whose elastic-band pants are filled…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":240201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8811,7299,36555,171,36397,11171,50812,398,4411,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-240200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-abc","9":"tag-disney","10":"tag-electionline","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-fcc","13":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","14":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","15":"tag-media","16":"tag-ted-cruz","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115233856802579066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}