Loading summary
Transcript31 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey guys, it's me, Sam Steinman. You got at the Bulwark, joined by Sarah Longwell, our publisher. And we are here to talk about Jimmy Kimmel, who was back on air last night. Not in my neck of the woods because Sinclair decided they weren't going to air it in Washington D.C. but lo and behold, it got shockingly high ratings. Incredible amount of views on YouTube. This is what happens when the President and his, you know, goons at the FCC turn you into a martyr. Sarah, let's talk about this first. Let me just say, like, I thought the monologue in, in sort of the abstract was really great. I think it hit all the right notes. I think it was both poignant and obviously comedic in, in the ways that it needed to be. And it addressed, you know, the threats to free speech. But I thought the most compelling part of it was when Kimmel clearly got choked up talking about the accusations that he was celebrating were making light of Charlie Kirk's assassination. Let's watch this clip from the monologue. He actually gets choked up twice. We're gonna, we're watch the first part and then I want to get your reaction on the flip side.
- [01:12]
B
But I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human. And that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.
- [01:23]
A
I don't. I don't think there's anything funny about it.
- [01:30]
B
I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed sending love to his family and asking for compassion. And I meant it, and I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was, obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill timed or unclear or, or maybe both. And for those who think I did point a finger. I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there's a good chance I'd have felt the same way.
- [02:02]
A
He clearly has moved. Or at least maybe it was just the, the entirety of the entire week that got to him. But he's clearly moved and has trouble delivering his speech there.
- [02:12]
C
Yeah, look, I, Well, I want to say just up front, my brother in law writes for Jimmy Kimmel, so just as a. But I don't, I don't know anything. Yeah, but I'll say it's funny. I remember when Jimmy Kimmel talked about his son and his kid was born roughly around the same time as mine. And I remember him giving this sort of heartfelt that his son was born with a congenital defect with a hole in his heart. And I remember him sort of struggling to get through his monologue about that after he'd been off. And I remember sitting there weeping like a baby as he did it. And I did that this time, too. And I was sort of caught off guard by myself. But I was thinking about why, like, what he was saying hit so hard. Like this part in particular where he talks about, look, a young man was killed. And I've got two things to say on this front. The first is, I think Jimmy Kimmel got done dirty, by the way that people interpreted the monologue where he went after Trump and said that he was going after Charlie Kirk. What he said verbatim, because I watched it a bunch of times, to be like, what. What was the judgment on this? And, like, was it really a poor judgment? But what he said was, it was about Trump. He was making fun of Trump. And Trump's, you know, rather than showing grief, was just kept talking about his. A ballroom that he was building, which I think is a clean hit from a comedian. But he was saying that the right. And Trump was doing everything they could to tell everybody that this shooter wasn't one of theirs, which is just factually true. He didn't say. And maybe he should have. Maybe this was a sin of omission, where he should have said, now it turns out that's not the case or something. Although at the time, like, you know, you're still this information about. Because I don't concede this idea that, you know, it's a deranged leftist, somebody who was sort of brought up in leftist ideology or. Or was hopped up on it. Like, this is, as Kimmel said, like a sick individual who did a terrible thing. And I think that he was genuinely perplexed and saddened at the idea that people would think that he would make fun of the death of Charlie Kirk. And I just, we took a lot of heat, Tim and I, right after, with our initial reaction for expressing a lot of sadness and shock. And I just want to say this. I guess it's been on my mind. So, like, I want to take this opportunity to say it, because I was thinking about it when I was listening to Jimmy Kimmel. Like, he says in there, you know how he gets a lot of death threats. Like, people come for him doing what he does. And that's true of all of us who are in the place of being public, people who talk about politics, people are very mad. They are very polarized. And like, we're swimmin. We don't like to talk about it because you don't want to encourage more people to do it. But like, we got kids too. Jimmy Kimmel has kids and people come for us really hard. Not mean comments online like, that's just the, that's just the world. That's fine. But like, lots of scary stuff gets said and batted around. And so like, there is none of us who feel okay or, or feel anything other than horrified when someone who is in the arena of ideas, even if their ideas we think are very bad, even if we sparred with them all the time or, or talked about the negative impact we thought they were having on the discourse. None of that like the strength with which we want to condemn any violence in this arena is total and complete. And I'm disappointed and scared by something that seems to be happening to people where even when they. And look, I've marinated in Charlie Kirk's bad takes for the last two or three weeks and none of that changes. And it was brought up last night, again, listening to Jimmy Kim. None of that changes. How horrifying it is to have seen somebody lose their life in this way because one deranged individual decided to take matters into their own hands. Anyway, it's just been on my mind and I wanted to say that I.
- [06:48]
A
Want to keep going on this and then we'll get to the other parts of the Kimmel monologue. Last night, to your point, when Kimmel said that Trump and MAGA is trying to do everything they can to ensure make clear that this person, Tyler Robinson, was not one of them, that was true. They were doing that now from immediately.
- [07:10]
C
Immediately with zero information, they moved on that.
- [07:13]
A
Now, the inference that people drew from that, that Republicans MAGA people drew from that, was that Kimmel saying, ah, but it is one of yours. Kimmel never said that. He was just making an observation that they were trying to create distance between Tyler Robinson and maga. Turns out that there was no, at least that we know of association between Tyler Robinson and MAGA doesn't change the fact that what Kimmel was saying in the moment, whether it was an artful or not, was true. And I think for him, I'm just guessing here, but to have that snippet of a comment then used to turn you into, you know, and I'm not saying, like, I just want to be clear, like, I do feel for Jimmy Kimmel. Obviously he has the resources and the platform that a lot of people Don't. But, like, for him, sure, it was very frightening to see that comment decontextualized and then have his livelihood and the livelihood of 200 people who work for him threatened in a way, it was. And then to be thrown off the air and then to be turned into this kind of, like, polarizing figure and a lightning rod for the idea of free speech in America. That's a lot in six days. And then to have to see your show become an avatar for the fight against Brandon Carr and Donald Trump is a lot. And you can tell in the way that he's going about it that it's just weighing on him. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure in his heart he feels deeply upset that he's now being painted as insensitive, almost gleeful for Charlie Kirk's murder, which was never the case. And so when he does talk about it, of course he gets choked up. And then the other part, we're not playing this clip, but where he does get choked up is when he talks about Erica Kirk, Charlie's widow, who in her speech forgives Tyler Robinson and says it's the sort of Christian thing to do. And he talks about the grace of that. And, you know, I think it was a really meaningful, moving moment to watch Kimmel say, this is what we should strive for, considering that he has not been the recipient of much grace over the past six days. There are other parts here that are worth talking about, but I think it's worth noting what preceded the monologue. And then we can get into the monologue, like, 30 minutes before Kimmel goes back on air. Donald Trump puts out another bleep where he basically is like, what the fuck is going on? I thought Kimmel was fired. ABC executives told the White House that he was being fired. And then he threatens to go after ABC again, noting that he already got a $16 million settlement from the network and floating the idea that this could be an illegal gain contribution by putting Kimmel back in there. I don't. I'm not a fucking lawyer, but obviously that's insane.
- [10:05]
C
But if that's true, if, if providing people platforms who criticize one candidate or another, then Fox News is one big, walking, talking election violation. Like, that's untrue. That's not how the country works. I got to say, Donald Trump's for somebody who wields free speech as a cudgel. He has zero understanding of it, or rather he does, and he wants to pervert it for his own purposes.
- [10:34]
A
I think it's the Latter. Yeah, well, maybe not, but I'm going to choose the latter anyway. So I want to talk about this, because to me, this gets at the. One of the more glossed over issues here, which is that I have a theory that this effort to get Kimmel off the air, which Trump admits to, would have worked had Donald Trump just shut up and not tweeted and had Brendan Carr not posted celebratory gifts and made overt threats on Benny Johnson's podcast. If they just worked behind the scenes and talked to Sinclair and Next Star and said, hey, you guys got to deplatform this guy. You got to go to ABC and say, we're not going to air this stuff, but don't put our fingerprints on this. This probably could have worked because then you wouldn't have had people like Ted Cruz and others rushing to say, hey, that's not cool. We shouldn't have the government, you know, demanding that people be tossed off the air. So, you know, that's a scary. It's actually kind of scary to think that way, that if not for their idiocy, this could have gotten Kimmel actually fully canceled.
- [11:41]
C
Yeah, it's a good point. Especially because I do think one of the hallmarks of the second Trump administration has been the sort of velociraptors learning to turn the doorknobs situation, where they are, right, where they have learned from their previous mistakes to do things, to do their authoritarianism in a better way. I think we are aided slightly not because they're stupid, although they are, but actually because they are so small and petty that they want people to know they are using their power to shut them up. Right? Like, he can't do it deftly because it's too important to him for people to know he did it. Right? It's like, what did Gabe?
- [12:26]
A
They like the social media clout, tell.
- [12:28]
C
Them it was me. Tell them it was me. And so, as a result, and I gotta say, I say this a lot, but, like, it is my favorite genre of Donald Trump's pernicious tweeting, where he basically takes a few days, lets all his surrogates rush out to say, he didn't do it. He didn't say it only to be like, I said it, I meant it. And you know what? I hadn't. And so, like, these people have no credibility.
- [12:56]
A
But the best example of this never got to come was when J.D. vance was like, we're never going to pardon the violent J6ers. And then Trump was just like, actually, yeah, all right. Let's talk. Let's. Let's actually play Jimmy Kimmel. That's clip number five. Because Jimmy Kimmel does address Brendan Carr on the show and goes right after him. And let's play the clip and we'll get a reaction. On the flip side of that, Brendan.
- [13:17]
B
Carr, the chairman of the fcc, telling an American company, we can do this the easy way or the hard way, and that these companies can find ways to change conduct and take action on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead, in addition to being a direct violation of. Of the First Amendment, is not a particularly intelligent threat to make in public. Ted Cruz said he sounded like a mafioso.
- [13:45]
A
All right, so they have it. He reads Brendan Card's words back to him. And again, it's like, had Brendan Carr just not said we could do this easy way or the hard way, I do wonder where we would have been here. But good for Kimmel for just being like, you know what? I'm going right at Brendan Carr.
- [13:59]
C
He went right up Brendan Carr and at Trump. But his. But he did. He reserved most of it for Brendan Carr. And look, I did this. The day when the Jimmy Kimmel stuff happened was so easy, my team dug up immediately six different dead to rights quotations from Carr himself, talking about free speech, about the way that the government isn't allowed to do these things. His direct criticisms of things that were much less severe from the Biden administration. Like it. And so, yes, I thought this was an excellent thing for Jimmy Kimmel to do. And honestly, I do think part of the problem we're living in right now is like, Brendan Carr should be surrounded by people who are saying, stop it. What you're doing is wrong. You cannot do this. But he's not, because he's doing it the behest of the President and he's doing it surrounded by a cabinet of people who are cheering him on and people like Megyn Kelly and everybody else who are going to, like, go to the mat and defend. Where are all the free speech warriors on Brandon Carr? He should be being derided. People think this is. I'm seeing this particular pose that I cannot stand, which is like, they do one tweet that's like, he shouldn't have said that on Benny Johnson's show. But Jimmy Kimmel is still terrible and, you know, he should be off the air. But they kind of do one little thing. But what he is doing is wrong and un American, like Jimmy Kimmel says, and he should. People should be all over him for this.
- [15:23]
A
Yeah. The thing that gets me is slightly different, although I appreciate them speaking up, but when Ted Cruz and, and the like say, well, this is wrong, because imagine what would happen if this happened to us. And it's like, well, that's. I'm glad that you feel that way. I'm glad you recognize it. But that's not the. That's not principle. That's self interest. And you need to be. We need to make sure that it's a principle thing, a neutral principle.
- [15:50]
C
Like, rather than saying, well, the shoe could be on the other foot, just say like, this isn't what we do in America.
- [15:55]
A
And the other thing. And you know, the other rejoinder is always, well, you know, the Biden administration went after Facebook in the like for Covid disinformation and they tried to deplatform these people. No one were complaining. When the New York Post, you know, put down the links to the Hunter, you know, Twitter put down the New York Post links to the Hunter Biden story. First of all, I was working in a newsroom at the time where, when the New York Post did that, where we were troubled by the fact that Twitter was doing a censorship of the Post articles. We thought it was not an appropriate thing for, for the outlet for a third party platform to do. Secondly is like, this is apples and oranges. Like a low level Biden official. In this case, it was Rob Flaherty. So relatively mid level to mid senior level. But whatever. You get my point. Reaching out to a Facebook executive saying, hey, these posts are misinformation. Consider taking it down. Folks, I just gotta be honest. Like, that happened all the time in every White House I've ever been covering. They reach out to outlets and say, hey, issue a correction, or hey, you got your shit wrong. Or hey, you need to remove this from the website. Like they work the rest. This happens all the freaking time. It's not abnormal. What is abnormal is, is the chair of the FCC and the president wielding the bureaucracy of the federal government to try to get people taken off the air. That's abnormal. Okay, let's not equate the two. Anyway, so Kimmel does this thing. I want to play last clip four. Because he gets to the broader issue here, which is you gotta stand up for these principles, which is what we're just talking about. So this was like the most shared line, most shared clip from his show where he talks about the importance not of the show, but of the ability for the show to exist. Let's listen.
- [17:38]
B
This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this. I've had the opportunity to meet and spend time with comedians and talk show hosts from countries like Russia, countries in the Middle east who told me they would get thrown in prison for making fun of those in power. And worse than being thrown in prison, they know how lucky we are here. Our freedom to speak is what they admire most about this country. And that's something I'm embarrassed to say I took for granted until they pulled my friend Stephen off the air.
- [18:17]
A
All right, so there you have it. I mean, that is it. I mean, summarized in a nutshell, really. It's not about Kimmel. It's about the idea of having a Jimmy Kimmel live that doesn't have to be taken off the air at the whims of Brendan Carr, Donald Trump, you.
- [18:31]
C
Know, there's a couple things about what he said, and this it's worth for any of you who. Who would care to do it, go listen to the whole monologue, because it's very strong. It's also funny, but it. It's.
- [18:42]
A
Well, you have to say that your brother writes for it.
- [18:46]
C
Well, you know, it's funny. Actually, Joe Bertigone had, like, in his newsletter, he had, like, something that was like, his comedy is stale. And I was like, you, Joe? Yeah, but anyway, so the whole thing is worth listening to. But I was thinking about. He was talking about the role of comedians at one point, and I think that it is not or should not be lost on people. That sort of comedy is the first. They're like the canary in the coal mine on free speech, right? Because the whole point of comedy, right, is often that you are out of bounds in some way. And so we have been having, I think, a cultural conversation about comedians. And it's. It's. It's to the extent that the right has dug in and said, you know, canceling comedians, right? You know, like, going after, like, people who are like Dave Chappelle on the trans stuff. You know, like, there has been. Comedies are on the front lines of free speech. I have always defended these things. I have debated whether or not they are funny when they're trying to be so transgressive, whatever. And you can debate how funny what Jimmy Kimmel was saying is. But, like, the point of comedians is to push boundaries. And, like, America is a unique place for making sure that our comedians can make fun of our presidents. Like, it is important to America that we are able to. To push back on these leaders. And the government doesn't come down on us. Like, that's almost as central to a point about America. And there's a reason, I think. So here's what I was, I was thinking of Zelensky. Donald Trump has just is sort of changing his tune on Ukraine a very, in a very welcome way.
- [20:33]
A
Sure, we'll see how long that lasts.
- [20:35]
C
We'll see. But he did called Zelensky brave. He was making. He was talking about Russia being a paper tiger and taking three years and getting nowhere. But it shouldn't be lost on people that, that Zelensky was a comedian in Ukraine. Like, that was his job. And I think that whether it's Jon Stewart or other people, there is something brave in comedy, and there sort of always has been. And so it's, it's interesting how Jimmy Kimmel didn't sign up to be. Like when he was doing the man show and women with boobs were jumping on trampolines. Right. He wasn't thinking to himself, boy, I hope one day I become a free speech warrior. And somebody who is in the middle.
- [21:16]
A
Of the monologue, how unexpected it was to be put in this position.
- [21:22]
C
There are people right now, very few people are meeting the moment. Very few people are meeting the moment. And he met it. And I think I appreciate the way he met it because he met it with humor, with compassion, and with a stiff spine, both to the corporation that he deals with, with his audience, and back to the president and Brendan Carr. So good on you, Jimmy.
- [21:51]
A
I'm into that. All right. We'll leave it at that. Sarah Longwell, thank you so much for doing this. Appreciate it. To those who watch, thank you for doing that, too. Subscribe to our feed. Look, it's good stuff you get when you subscribe to this feed. Better stuff you get when you become a paid subscriber. Look into it. All right, talk to you later.