President Trump called out former late night anchor David Letterman for defending Jimmy Kimmel, who was taken off air this week by ABC over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Whatever happened to the very highly overrated David Letterman, whose ratings were never very good, either,” the president wrote late Friday in a post on Truth Social. “He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!”
Letterman, the former late-night host himself, lit into the Trump administration on Thursday after Kimmel’s show was nixed “indefinitely.”
“I just, I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct? It’s managed media and it’s no good,” the former “Late Show” host said at The Atlantic Festival in New York City. “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.”
Kimmel on Monday said the country “hit some new lows over the weekend,” when the “MAGA gang desperately tried to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
He then accused conservative Republicans of attempting to “score political points” after Kirk was shot and killed in Utah last Wednesday.
ABC’s decision came after Nexstar Media Group, which owns The Hill, said its affiliate stations would preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live” over the rhetoric. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr also rebuked the late-night comedian, calling his comments “some of the sickest conduct possible.”
Democrats slammed the administration and some of the party’s lawmakers called for Carr to resign over perceived censorship. Free speech concerns have been widespread after the Trump administration vowed to seek out negative comments made by federal employees toward Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA.
Other late-night hosts have rallied around Kimmel in the wake of his suspension, with CBS’s Stephen Colbert knocking ABC’s decision as “censorship”
