The View Hosts Break Their Silence on Jimmy Kimmel Suspension — You Won’t Believe Whose Side They’re On
The View finally broke its silence on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspension, with Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts weighing in on Sept. 22 after FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested the FCC should review their show next.
Daytime TV got a little First Amendment-y. After a week of online noise and a nudge from an FCC official, The View finally tackled the Jimmy Kimmel Live! suspension on air, and they did not tiptoe around it.
Why The View spoke up now
Context first: The View had been quiet about Kimmel for a bit. Then FCC Chair Brendan Carr publicly floated the idea that the agency should review The View next. That is a weirdly inside-baseball turn for a daytime panel show, and it basically guaranteed the topic would make it to the Hot Topics table.
The on-air moment
On the September 22 episode, Whoopi Goldberg opened by making it clear they were not ducking the story.
"Did y'all really think we were not gonna talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? You know, no one silences us."
Goldberg drew a line between what networks can do and what the government should not do: shows get pulled, hosts get held accountable, that happens. But government pressure to muzzle speech? Not how this works. The panel rolled clips of senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul weighing in, and Goldberg also took a pointed swing at former President Donald Trump, wondering how he still manages to miss the basics of the First Amendment.
Sunny Hostin backed her up, saying the president of the United States, of all people, should understand what free speech actually is. Ana Navarro, meanwhile, thanked viewers who expect truth and courage from the show and admitted the panel heard the criticism for not addressing the suspension sooner. She also got personal, bringing up her upbringing in Nicaragua under both right- and left-wing dictatorships as a reminder that government overreach tends to start with silencing big platforms and the press, then spreads to everyone else.
The messy backstory
This all traces back to Kimmel's September 15 monologue, where he ripped right-wing figures for politicizing the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. After that, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended, and the fallout spiraled into larger debates, including the FCC chatter about whether The View should be next. It is a lot for a late-night monologue to set off, but here we are.
- Sep 15: Kimmel calls out right-wing reactions in a monologue about the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
- In the aftermath: Jimmy Kimmel Live! gets suspended; FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggests the agency should look at The View next.
- Sep 22: The View addresses it head-on, pushing back on the idea of government pressure to silence speech.
Bottom line: The View framed this less as a who-said-what TV dust-up and more as a civics lesson with receipts. Agree or not, they were not subtle, and they were not quiet.