00:00And that breaking news here at 6 today, the future of the late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live is in jeopardy.
00:07Good evening once again everyone, I'm Colleen Williams.
00:09And I'm Michael Brownlee. ABC is preempting this show indefinitely because of comments he made by, or following as you say, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
00:17NBC4's Conan Nolan joins us live from the newsroom. Conan, that announcement is sending shockwaves through Hollywood tonight.
00:24It is, Colleen, and it deserves a little bit of a back story.
00:28Prior to the news conference on Tuesday that delineated the evidence against the assassin, the alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk, there was a narrative over the weekend that perhaps this man, Tyler Robinson, was actually a supporter of President Donald Trump.
00:44In fact, there were those who believed he was part of the ultra-right wing who considered Charlie Kirk to be too liberal, that he was too accommodating to political moderates and leftists.
00:56That turned out not to be the case.
00:58But in between that wording on the Internet and what happened on Tuesday with the announcement of the evidence,
01:05it appears that Jimmy Kimmel bought into what was being said online, and that led to the monologue that is in dispute on Monday night.
01:15The controversy stemmed from this joke during Monday night's monologue on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show taped on Hollywood Boulevard.
01:22It regarded not slain political activist Charlie Kirk, but Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old man accused in Kirk's murder.
01:31We 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,
01:39and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
01:43You can see how hard the president is taking this.
01:46My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. May I ask, sir, personally, how are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir?
01:53I think very good. And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They've just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House.
02:00Yes. He's at the fourth stage of grief, construction.
02:04The day following the monologue, prosecutors in Utah County, Utah, indicated that the killer was not a supporter of President Donald Trump,
02:12but rather of the political left and viewed Charlie Kirk as an enemy of the trans and gay movements.
02:18Today, the Nextar Media Corporation, which is in need of FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger with the media company Tegna,
02:27issued a statement saying it strongly objected to Kimmel's comments and was going to replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets.
02:36ABC Television announced it is suspending airing of the program indefinitely.
02:40FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on conservative commentator Benny Johnson's podcast threatened to take action against ABC for Kimmel suggesting that Kirk's killer was a Trump supporter.
02:51And what appears to be an action, appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican motivated person.
03:06If that's what happened here with his conduct, that is really, really sick.
03:11Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, who has long been a critic of Jimmy Kimmel's, responded from the United Kingdom, in part saying on his truth social media,
03:20congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.
03:25The words of President Trump.
03:26I'm Conan Nolan, NBC4.
Commentaires