If it weren't for two, simple words – “You're fired!” – Donald Trump might never have become president. The Apprentice taught the flaxen-haired New Yorker the power of television, not to mention the impact of a good catchphrase. This week, his obsession with TV and firings collided, as Jimmy Kimmel – a long term critic of the President – was suspended from his eponymous talk show in the fallout of comments made about the assassination of right-wing polemicist Charlie Kirk. It has laid bare a new reality: that TV is a front in the culture wars.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend,” Kimmel told his audience, after suspected killer Tyler Robinson was arrested. “With the MAGA gang trying to characterise [Robinson] as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.” These comments – the sort of innocuously partisan messaging that has always been commonplace on the late-night shows – drew criticism from Kirk’s fanbase, a mob that includes the current Oval Office incumbent. When ABC, the channel that airs Jimmy Kimmel Live!, announced the programme’s suspension, the president took to Truth Social to offer feedback. “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done,” he wrote. “Kimmel has ZERO talent.” He ended by imploring NBC to fire its two late-night hosts: Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.
