One way to gauge the intentions of would-be authoritarians is to see how far they tolerate the jesters. An early sign of Vladimir Putin’s quest to bring Russian media to heel was the 2001 axing of Kukly (Puppets), a TV show that often satirised the thin-skinned president. There were Putinesque echoes in last week’s suspension in the US of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show by Disney-owned ABC — two months after his fellow comic Stephen Colbert, to whom President Donald Trump has a similar aversion, was taken off air. Kimmel’s return this week after a noisy backlash is a notable reversal, even if nearly 70 local TV stations refused to screen his show. But the threats to US media freedom are only growing.
Not just the Kimmel and Colbert affairs but various tactics being used to stifle content that Trump dislikes seem to fit an established strongman-leader playbook. They include the use of lawsuits, law enforcement bodies and regulators to put pressure on media businesses and their owners.
Kimmel appeared to suggest last week that the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a Maga supporter — an insensitive and inaccurate remark, but hardly a cancellation offence. ABC pulled his show, nonetheless, shortly after Nexstar, a big owner of US local TV stations, said it would stop screening it. Nexstar plans a $6.2bn merger with rival Tegna that needs the go-ahead from Brendan Carr, the pro-Trump chair of the Federal Communications Commission. Carr had earlier told a podcast that TV companies must “take action” over Kimmel’s “sickest conduct possible”. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he warned, hinting at fines or licence revocations for companies that failed to act.
Shortly after CBS cancelled Colbert’s show in July, meanwhile — blaming high costs — the FCC approved its parent Paramount Global’s $8bn takeover by Skydance. Colbert had earlier mocked Paramount’s $16mn settlement of a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump.
Colbert’s quip highlighted how the president is using lawfare against critical media. Disney’s ABC last year paid $15mn to settle a Trump lawsuit, seen by many experts as frivolous, over a presenter’s inaccurate statement. The president has since sued the Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch for $10bn over its reporting of a letter allegedly sent by Trump to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which the president denies writing. And Trump has sued the New York Times for $15bn for alleged defamation, though a US district judge has for now dismissed the suit as overlong and lacking a “plain statement of the claim”.
There are worrying signs, too, of government attempts to influence a key social media player. The deal being finalised by the Trump administration to steer TikTok’s US operations into the hands of American buyers was intended to address national security threats posed by Chinese ownership. But a White House official said Oracle, which will have oversight of the US version, “will operate in partnership with the US government to ensure safety”, including “retraining” the algorithm that curates content for users. Any deal should leave the app entirely in private business hands, with independent regulation.
Many US institutions have proved less robust than hoped in the face of Trump’s onslaught on democratic norms. But the backlash over the Kimmel decision — from Hollywood bigwigs including Disney’s own talent, entertainment unions, viewers cancelling subscriptions, and even some prominent Republicans — suggests a sizeable chunk of the non-Maga population are prepared to dig in if the president’s circle goes too far. The return of the late-night comic, though, is just one battle in what is set to be a long struggle to defend America’s cherished tradition of free speech.