Developing News (09/23/25): On Sep. 22, 2025, Disney/ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return to the airwaves on Tuesday, September 23.
However, Sinclair and Nexstar, which operate some of the local affiliated stations to ABC, have declared that they will continue to block Kimmel.
This story continues to develop.
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Jimmy Kimmel has often spoken for kids when other voices were missing. In 2017, when the first Trump Administration and Congress were poised to slash hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and let the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expire, Kimmel took the stage and the microphone to explain to the country what that meant: children’s lives were at risk. His own newborn son needed life-saving surgery, and Kimmel used that experience not just to focus on his child’s health, but to fight for millions of others.
Now, his voice has been silenced. Disney/ABC abruptly pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air after pressure from Trump Administration officials. While late-night monologues often poke fun at politicians, the future silencing of Stephen Colbert on CBS a few weeks ago and now Jimmy Kimmel represents something far more serious.
My purpose here is to remind people of the critically important role that Jimmy Kimmel played in using his platform to advocate for the protection of the health, safety, survival, and well-being of millions of children. That role is essential because kids are often invisible in political conversations and need adults such as Kimmel to voice their needs and interests.
Furthermore, when voices that dare to satirize and poke fun at our political leaders are removed from the national conversation, it should concern all of us.
In the first year of the first term of the Trump Administration, the President proposed the abolition of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid. In response, Kimmel took to the stage to speak up for children’s health needs on multiple occasions. He became a leading, powerful voice for children and their care through both Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
I cannot overstate how critically important this was for children. As TrumpCare was moving through the process, powerful groups advocated for Congress to mitigate the harm to them, while kids were left bearing a disproportionate share of the cuts. Policy was being driven more by political power than facts.
Kimmel didn’t speak up for children for personal or political gain. He didn’t do it for the benefit of his own son. Kimmel recognized that his own newborn baby, whose life hung in the balance due to a congenital heart condition, would have access to the care he needed to thrive and survive. Instead, Kimmel looked around at the other children in the hospital and chose to spreak up for them and the millions of other children who were having their care threatened. Throughout the year, the Trump Administration’s proposed massive cuts to Medicaid and the ACA, and subsequently, failed to protect CHIP from expiration at the end of September 2017.
For children, it was a double whammy, and Kimmel took the stage to defend both the kids and their families from both threats.
Since children lack political action committees (PACs) and can’t hire a cadre of lobbyists to demand that Congress address their needs and concerns, Kimmel recognized that they were the group most likely to suffer irreparable harm if the hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid were to be passed into law.
His concern was well-founded, as a study by Avalere Health found that the arbitrary limits or “per capita cap” being proposed under the Graham-Cassidy bill in the Senate would have reduced Medicaid funding for senior citizens by 1.9% and by 31.4% for children.
Children desperately needed Kimmel’s voice in that debate, as he proved to be instrumental in helping protect children from grave harm – particularly low-income children, kids with special health care needs, and children in the foster care system.
Today, his voice is being silenced.
Part 1: Medicaid and the “Jimmy Kimmel Test”
In May 2017, Kimmel shared a deeply personal story with his viewers. His baby, Billy, had been born with a serious heart condition and needed emergency open-heart surgery at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He spoke not just as a father, but as a citizen who recognized a looming national crisis: a proposal by the Trump Administration to repeal the ACA and slash Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars would threaten the health of millions of children across the country.
Kimmel asked the country to imagine what would have happened if his family hadn’t had access to quality, affordable care — and he pointed out that millions of families don’t. He framed the issue simply and powerfully:
I saw a lot of families there. And no parent should have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life. It just shouldn’t happen.
Kimmel went on to make the case that health reform should improve and never threaten the health and well-being of children, as TrumpCare did.
Kimmel’s messages cut through the spin. It forced policymakers and the public to consider the stakes of legislation not as abstract policy with a seemingly innocuase title, the American Health Care Act of 2017, but as a life-or-death set of policies that would have negative consequences on children.
Kimmel set a clear standard and a line that should not be crossed.
When Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) later promoted a new repeal bill (“Graham-Cassidy”) introduced in the Senate, he claimed it passed the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” But Kimmel wasn’t having it.
He read the bill, listened to pediatric and public health experts, and went back on air to declare that the Senate version of TrumpCare did not pass the ‘“Jimmy Kimmel test.”
Throughout the consideration of the House and Senate bills, Kimmel helped galvanize child advocates across the country and spoke with great passion about the needs of children. He gave the issue the attention necessary to highlight exactly what children need and why Medicaid was so critically important to their health and well-being.
This standard or “Jimmy Kimmel test” became a rallying cry for how any health care proposal should be evaluated: Would it ensure that every child, regardless of income, could get life-saving care?
When the American Health Care Act (i.e., TrumpCare) and “Graham-Cassidy” were measured by these basic health care standards or “Jimmy Kimmel test,” they repeatedly failed.
There is no doubt that Kimmel’s monologues and advocacy helped shift the debate. His statements made headlines, captured the attention of the American people, sparked conversations at kitchen tables and in Congress, and played a critical role in helping to stop TrumpCare when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) voted to defeat the bill in the Senate.
Kimmel’s expression of gratitude for McCain’s vote, the health of his child, his understanding that others may not be as fortunate, and his expression of support that all parents are able to “afford to save their child’s life” is something that people all across the country responded to.. Kimmel was flooded with compassion, prayers, and messages of support, donations were made to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to help other children, and people flooded congressional phone lines urging that they protect Medicaid and children’s health coverage.
Trump and his allies were not pleased: they found fault in his advocacy and responded with a series of attacks that were filled with disturbing personal attacks. They accused Kimmel of “obscene lies” (a foreshadowing?) and politicizing his son’s illness. He was mocked, attacked, and accused of stepping out of his lane.
As examples, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and columnist Michelle Malkin attacked him by arguing that uninsured children can get treatment in emergency rooms (tragically trying to make the bizarre argument that health insurance coverage for children is meaningless).
Malkin added that Kimmel’s statement was a “waste of Kleenex” and Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt called Kimmel an “elitist creep” and a “dirty, self-absorbed, narcissistic exhibitionist” for “blubbering about politics.”
In a sarcastic response to Gingrich, Kimmel said:
I would like to apologize for saying children in America should have health care. It was insensitive. It was offensive, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.
The criticisms from Gingrich, Malkin, Hurt, and others not only lacked basic human compassion but were horribly uninformed. They either had no understanding as to how the health care system actually works or didn’t even bother to listen to what Kimmel actually said before deciding to attack him for advocating for his one fundamental objective: “no parent should ever have to decide if they can afford to save their child’s life.”
Jimmy Kimmel’s comments were not only morally right – they were factually right. And despite the endless attacks, he never backed down because, for Kimmel, this wasn’t a typical political fight. It was about doing the right thing – for children.
Part 2: Defending CHIP — When Congress Treated Children as Bargaining Chips
After playing an important role in the defeat of TrumpCare and Graham-Cassidy, Kimmel returned to the issue of child health just months later due to another pending threat.
At the end of September 2017, the Trump Administration and Congress ignored, neglected, and failed to extend the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) before it expired – leaving more than 9 million children in limbo. The program, which provides low-cost coverage to working families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance, became a bargaining chip in budget negotiations.
For months, Congress prioritized TrumpCare and Trump’s tax bill and failed to act on saving CHIP, despite the American people clamoring for making the extension of CHIP a much higher priority.
With federal funding expiring, state funds ran low and millions of families across the country feared the consequences — unsure whether their children would stay covered.
In an Op-Ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Myra Gregory described the threat that the CHIP funding expiration posed for her 11-year-old son Roland, who was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier in the year. In the editorial, Gregory wrote:
I understand that our society is divided right now. I understand that Republicans and Democrats can have honest differences of opinion. What I cannot understand is how the U.S. Congress could make the health security of kids like Roland a guessing game, and their lives bargaining chips. Watching my baby fight for his life this past year has been agonizing. I’ve held him in my arms while he cries in pain, I’ve experienced anxiety and stress I thought I would never overcome, and I have had to have conversations with Roland’s younger brothers that no child should have to have. I have always known that our situation could get worse, but I never imagined that Congress would be an obstacle in my son’s battle with cancer.
Once again, Kimmel used his platform to break through the noise and to demand better. In December, with his son Billy recovering from a second heart surgery, Kimmel brought him on air — a smiling, squirming toddler in his arms — and delivered a powerful and emotional monologue.
He explained CHIP in terms anyone could understand. He showed the absurdity — and cruelty — of a government that would leave millions of children uninsured as a matter of political convenience and gamesmanship.
Kimmel argued:
[CHIP] almost certainly covers children you know. About one in eight children are covered only by CHIP… Now, CHIP has become a bargaining chip. It’s on the back burner while [Members of Congress] work out their new tax plans, which means parents of children with cancer and diabetes and heart problems are about to get letters saying their coverage could be cut off next month. Merry Christmas, right? This happened because Congress, about 72 days ago, failed to approve funding for CHIP since the first time it was created about two decades ago. This is literally a life-and-death program for American kids.
He continued:
I don’t know about you, I’ve had enough of this. I don’t know what could be more disgusting than putting a tax cut that mostly goes to rich people ahead of the lives of children. Why hasn’t CHIP been funded already?
Once again, his words mattered.
He galvanized public attention, rallied advocates, and helped pressure lawmakers, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), to finally act.
More than 100 days after it had expired, CHIP was finally reauthorized, but only after avoidable anxiety for families had reached a crisis point across the country.
In both cases — Medicaid and CHIP — Kimmel did what few celebrities, and fewer politicians, were willing to do: he centered the conversation around children. He made sure their needs couldn’t be ignored. And he used his platform to speak truth to power and to demand better.
His advocacy for children has continued over the years. Here are a few of many examples.
In short, Kimmel has been an important voice and “champion for children” in multiple ways over the years.
The President and his inner circle disliked Kimmel for reasons that go beyond Kimmel’s advocacy and voice against TrumpCare but, according to Rolling Stone, it led to the President to tell his staff to call Disney/ABC to “demand action” and censor Kimmel in early 2018.
Fast forward to what happened this week when Disney/ABC decided to suspend the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show. According to the timeline, after the murder of Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, Kimmel first issued a statement expressing grief and compassion for the Kirk family. Specifically, Kimmel said that Kirk was a “victim of senseless gun violence” and condemned those who appeared to celebrate it.
Amidst rising political tensions over speech, extremism, and responsibility, Kimmel subsequently questioned the MAGA movement’s attempts to identify left-wing political malice in the motivations of the alleged killer.
This was and is still happening, as there has been a great deal of debate and questions by political actors and in media channels across the political divide about the potential motivations of the assassin, as countervailing evidence, rumors, and misinformation emerged and continue to emerge.
Quite frankly, the answers to these questions are unlikely to result in a simplistic, reductionist understanding that ideologues are trying to fit neatly into some ideological box, but rather something far more complex that we should all be careful to comprehend and try to address.
Regardless of one’s thoughts on the motivations or whether people feel the FBI has botched the “investigation,” what’s deeply disturbing is how the federal government was seemingly weaponized to push Disney/ABC to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the airways.
Federal Communications Committee (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, publicly condemned or mischaracterized Kimmel’s words – but then took it a step further. Carr issued a thinly veiled threat: that ABC’s broadcast license could be at risk if it continued to air Kimmel’s show.
“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.” – Brendan Carr, FCC Chairman
Carr’s statement also contradicts the Administration’s own declared policies.
In January 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” The EO states that federal officials must not use their power to “coerce or pressure” private companies to suppress speech they disagree with. It condemns past efforts to manipulate or intimidate media platforms and explicitly directs federal agencies to respect First Amendment rights.
Yet here we are. This is exactly what Carr did. As a federal regulator, he used his office to coerce a broadcaster to silence a critic — not just any critic, but one of the rare voices who has used his platform to fight for the health, nutrition, safety, and well-being of children over the years.
Carr’s action directly contradicts his own past statements on using government power to limit free speech.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also criticized Carr’s actions on his podcast.
However, the Administration is doubling down.
Either the Constitution’s principle of free speech applies across the board, or it’s just political theater to reward friends and punish critics.
The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on speech protections just last year. In a 9–0 decision in NRA v. Vullo last year, the Court ruled that government officials cannot use coercive pressure to punish disfavored speech. In that case, a state regulator had pressured insurers and banks to sever ties with the NRA. The Court’s opinion was clear: this kind of government behavior violates the Constitution.
“…the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, majority opinion in NRA v. Vullo (2024)
By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court ruled that he government doesn’t get to pick and choose whose speech is protected. That includes entertainers. That includes critics of the Administration. And yes, that includes people like late-night talk show hosts who dare to say that every child deserves a shot at life.
The message the Trump Administration is sending is a disturbing one. It tells the media, comedians, writers, educators, museums, librarians, researchers, and advocates to stay quiet. It warns people not to speak out if they might be critical of the Administration or its position.
And in some cases, such as when voices are needed to protect Medicaid, CHIP, vaccines, and pediatric research, silence can be deadly.
In the end, silencing Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t just hurt him. If this can happen to Jimmy Kimmel, what does it mean for the rest of us, especially the children who desperately need voices like Kimmel’s to speak up for them?
As for Disney/ABC, it is a media empire that builds much of its brand and bottom line off of children and families through its movies, theme parks, merchandise, and streaming services. Instead of defending the tenets of free speech, it folded. They pulled him off the air with no defense of editorial independence. For a media company that also markets itself as a promoter of children, the company’s actions and inactions are not just disappointing – they are indefensible.
And when the target of government pressure is someone who speaks up for sick and hungry children, the cost isn’t just measured in terms of ratings, profits, or political favors, but in the erosion of democratic principles and the loss of a long-time voice for children.
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