Stephen Colbert Says He "Stands With Jimmy Kimmel and His Staff" Amid Controversy

After Jimmy Kimmel addressed details about influencer and activist Charlie Kirk's death and the suspect in the murder on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, his show was taken off the air indefinitely. Per CNBC, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr ordered that the show be suspended because he said Jimmy "misled the American public" about Charlie and Donald Trump.

After the show went off the air, other late-night hosts commented on the issue and the possibility of being similarly punished by the FCC at some point. So when Stephen Colbert's response to Jimmy Kimmel came out on his show, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, it was another way for another late-night talk show host to support Jimmy.

During the Sept. 18, 2025, episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Stephen gave a monologue about Jimmy's show being taken off the air and the repercussions of Jimmy's comments about Charlie's shooting and about the Republican party, particularly those who support Trump. Stephen said that he sees the FCC's ruling about Jimmy's show as "blatant censorship" and added that he stands with Jimmy and his employees.

"If ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive, and clearly, they've never read the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Kimmel," he said, with the first part in reference to the measure against Jimmy satisfying the Trump administration. "And to Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff 100 percent."

Part of Jimmy's original monologue of his own, which landed the show on the FCC watch list and got it suspended indefinitely, included his claims about the "MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Charlie as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."

Following the episode with Jimmy's comments about Charlie, FCC head Brendan Carr said, per CNBC, that Charlie's death was a "significant political assassination." He condemned Jimmy's comments and said they were not jokes.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart shared his own thoughts about Jimmy Kimmel Live! being taken off the air amid Jimmy's comments in an episode of The Daily Show, complete with satire and an opening with a voiceover that called it the "government-approved Daily Show." Among Jon's jokes about Trump and digs about free speech, he also shared commentary about what happened and what it means.

"Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration's speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principle-less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance," Jon said.

Then he added, as an obvious joke, "Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it's great."