David Letterman Explodes Over Jimmy Kimmel Suspension, Calls It Ridiculous

David Letterman is not subtle, and he is absolutely not thrilled that ABC sidelined Jimmy Kimmel Live. He went long and loud about it, and the subtext wasn't subtle either: this wasn't just a TV scheduling call, it was a red flag.

Letterman unloads

Speaking at The Atlantic Festival 2025, Letterman slammed ABC's move and the climate around it, in remarks reported by Variety. He framed it as a free-speech problem dressed up as corporate caution, and he didn't dance around who he thinks is being appeased.

"This is misery. I feel bad about this. We see where this is all going, correct? It's managed media. And it's no good. It's silly. It's ridiculous. And you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That's just not how this works."

He also warned that anyone cheering now might regret it later: in his view, once you normalize this, nobody is safe. As he put it, the office of the president should be bigger than a late-night comedian, not the other way around.

Letterman even hinted this wasn't spontaneous. He pointed to the fact that the president had essentially forecast something like this right after Stephen Colbert was taken off the air — his implication being: if it was predicted from the top, how is this not premeditated on some level?

How we got here (the short version)

• On Wednesday night, ABC halted production on Jimmy Kimmel Live following a public threat from the FCC to take action against the network and its broadcast license. The trigger: Kimmel's on-air comments about the death of Charlie Kirk.
• In what is now his last episode for the moment, Kimmel speculated about the political leanings of Kirk's killer and called out the online scramble to distance the shooter from MAGA world.
• Kimmel's exact line from the monologue: "We hit 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 doing everything they can to score political points from it."
• ABC has put the show on indefinite pause.
• Meanwhile, Sinclair Broadcast Group — which, along with Nexstar, owns a number of ABC affiliate stations — said that instead of Kimmel's Friday show, ABC will air a special memorial service for Kirk that other affiliates can also carry.
• Sinclair also wants Kimmel to apologize and to make what it calls a "meaningful personal donation" to Kirk's family and to Turning Point USA.

The inside-baseball part

This isn't just a host vs. network dustup; it's a weird tangle of regulators, affiliates, and politics. The FCC threat is a big, blunt instrument in broadcast terms. Affiliates like Sinclair and Nexstar aren't the network, but they help decide what hits local air — and when they start dictating programming swaps and calling for personal donations, that's… not typical.

Layer in Letterman's "managed media" warning and his hint that the White House all but telegraphed this after Colbert's removal, and you get why he's sounding alarms. Whether you agree with Kimmel or not, this is bigger than one monologue. It's about who sets the boundaries for what late-night can say — the shows, the suits, the affiliates, or the folks in power watching from D.C.