Days After Saying Govt Shouldn’t Threaten Media Orgs, Dem Senators Launch Probe of Nexstar, Sinclair
“…the statements from FCC Chairman Carr and President Trump represent an extraordinary abuse of power that jeopardizes all Americans’ First Amendment rights. These moves should be investigated to determine if they violate federal law.”
Though Disney and ABC reversed course Monday on late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s “indefinite” suspension, both Nexstar and Sinclair, two TV station operators that own and control roughly 25% of local ABC affiliates, have said they will continue to preempt Kimmel’s broadcasts with other programming:
Nexstar, a major owner of local ABC stations, said on Tuesday morning that it would pre-empt Mr. Kimmel’s show indefinitely. Sinclair, another owner of local affiliates, said the same on Monday evening, hours after Disney announced “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return. Nexstar said it would replace the comedy show with news programming, pending further “discussions with ABC.”
“Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,” Sinclair added in their statement.
The continued defiance of both Nexstar and Sinclair in refusing to air future episodes of Kimmel’s show pending negotiations with ABC and Disney has ruffled the feathers of Democrats, many of whom previously argued after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr suggested last week that action might be taken that the government should never threaten the First Amendment rights of media organizations.
As a result, four Democratic Senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), have kicked off a probe into Nexstar and Sinclair on grounds that they’re allegedly doing this to curry favor with the Trump administration:
In a letter, first obtained by NBC News, the lawmakers asked the corporate heads of both companies for more information about their decisions to pre-empt airings of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “how those decisions may relate to regulatory issues pending with the Trump administration.”
“If you suspended a late-night comedian’s show in part to seek regulatory favors from the administration, you have not only assisted the administration in eroding First Amendment freedoms but also create the appearance of a possible quid-pro-quo arrangement that could implicate federal anti-corruption laws,” the lawmakers wrote.
[…]
Nexstar and Sinclair both have pending business before the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the broadcast television industry and other key media platforms. Nexstar is seeking FCC approval for a proposed $6.2 billion merger with a rival, Tegna. Sinclair is exploring merger options for its broadcast business, according to CNBC.
“Make no mistake: the statements from FCC Chairman Carr and President Trump represent an extraordinary abuse of power that jeopardizes all Americans’ First Amendment rights,” Sens. Warren, Ed Markey (MA), Chris Van Hollen (MD), and Ron Wyden (OR) wrote in the letter. “These moves should be investigated to determine if they violate federal law.”
Kimmel is back, but many Americans won’t be able to watch.
Two companies — Nexstar and Sinclair — control hundreds of local TV stations and have business deals pending Donald Trump’s approval.
They won’t air Kimmel tonight.
I’m pressing for answers on potential corruption. pic.twitter.com/cjLsg9mHLi
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 23, 2025
I’m glad Disney is returning Jimmy Kimmel to the air after @BrendanCarrFCC’s unconstitutional statements last week. We still need a congressional hearing to investigate this matter. https://t.co/0JeraRykCp
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) September 22, 2025
This turn of events, where Democrats have gone from “this is fascism!” to “let’s investigate these TV station owners!” prompted conservatives to respond on the X machine accordingly:
Wait, don't affiliates have a First Amendment right to broadcast what they want?
Are we already back to the left demanding they control the flow of information? https://t.co/XH907Kvh0L
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 24, 2025
— Engineer Rick (@engrbecker) September 24, 2025
Oh, so you’re accusing FCC of pressuring ABC to cancel Kimmel, but you’re A-OK to pressure them to put him back on?
I guess you’re (D)ifferemt.— Ron Bassilian (@Ron4California) September 24, 2025
As per the norm, it’s always (D)ifferent when Democrats do it. Always.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
Nexstar and Sinclair response to Princess Sitting Karen:
We are exercising our first amendments rights, so American, so Constitutional. We hope this settles your hash.
Nexstar and Sinclair to Princess Lying Bull:
We are not threatening anyone’s First Amendment rights. Kimmel has the right to say whatever he wishes. But he is not immune from the consequences of his speech. Therefore as a consequence of his speech we will continue to pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel Live! until an appropriate apology is made. We hope this settles your First Amendment/Free Speech concerns.
I believe these companies said they were responding to customer complaint in reach to Kimmel’s indecent lies. That’s responsive customer service. Kimmel’s plight is no different than what happened to the Dixie Chicks who destroyed their success by dissing America at an overseas concert. When preening celebrities forget they are in essence businesses with customers, there can be career ending consequences.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Democrat.
What can you say? Used car salesmen have better morals. Guess it’s time to get me a beer.
If the earth were to open and swallow Markey and Warren no one would know, no one would care, and we’d be much better off. Completely useless. In fact the current crop of MA politicians is the most useless bunch I’ve ever seen.
They are a one-two punch like no other. Complete buffoons the pair of them.
Big pharma would care. They’d have to bribe another democrat more to keep getting their protection.
Warren and Markey are both National embarrassments. At least Markey is so perpetually ineffective, he is harmless. Warren is anything but harmless, she’s an effective Communist. I gave up on Massachusetts and moved to Florida years ago.
Oh FFS! Whiney petulant shallow spoiled brats. IT IS A TV SHOW. A man was murdered by comparison. I am trying hard not to hate these brats, really trying, but they keep being whiney petulant shallow spoiled brats who I WANT to hate.
The hypocrisy of Squaw Warren is endless.
She and Bernie are two peas in the same Marxist pod.
All they’re doing is looking for an excuse to impeach President Trump.
They need something to rally around for the midterms, since their Party is in such disarray.
That’s all this is.
The latest attempt to gin up outrage about something. So few people care about Kimmel this will be gone by Monday. Bottom line is Kimmel has lost 40% of his audience over the last decade and has worse ratings than canceled Colbert. He is losing money. ABC/Disney will probably not renew his contract
So they’re accusing Sinclair of doing what Facebook and Google and YouTube and the Biden administration actually did.
Lizzie, if you didn’t shriek over Alphabet and Meta, STFU.
no one is surprised by the lefts hypocrisy
only by the gops lack of action to take away the funding from the left
From the party that threatened media under dictator dementia regime.
I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a photo of Elizabeth Warren where her mouth wasn’t gaping open.
ABC and Disney is in a world of hurt. Kimmel’s show is a high money loser for ABC and Disney, which their affiliates Nexstar and Sinclair see stopped showing it. Disney has been losing money on films, shows, and their parks as people are not coming to them. ABC is dying of viewers and it is a matter of time. People want truth and woke goes broke. I am amazed these Dems still get voted in by their people.
Who says the people are voting them in? The vote for them may be “fortified”.
Disney is beginning to see what happens when a corporation becomes political and alienated half of their customers. No one is happy about what you are doing.
If Elizabeth Warren is elected president will they still play Hail to the Chief?
They’ll replace it with “Hail to the Redskins.” Nobody is using it anymore, and it has a real catchy bridge.
Ounce of prevention beats a pound of the cure.
We are going to have to fight over Brendan Carr’s stupid and obviously deliberate gift to the Democrats when instead we should be on the offensive and getting corporate America to step back from the brink.
Instead we have invited backlash against ourselves for……why?????
The only man who both could have and wanted to save Kimmel while changing the narrative was Brendan Carr and he did exactly that. The idea he didn’t know what he was doing would mean he is too stupid to be in his current position.
This doesn’t make the Democrats good but why aren’t we still getting momentum of corporate America quitting the Democratic Party?
His name is Carr.
Oh, Danny – try to get used to being “in power” instead of “in office” for a change.
When you’re in power, you don’t have to worry about stupid shrieking Karens who don’t have any any longer.
You mean like winning by getting Disney to rehire Kimmel instead of eliminating him and reconsidering their partisan loyalties that winning?
What that stupid and indefensible position by Brendan Carr in fact did was save Jimmy Kimmel.
Did you know the VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES subtly agreed with me by trying to walk back what Brendan Carr said into pretending it was a joke (and therefore something that can’t be defended)?
There is a reason and that reason is Vance would rather win than lose.
We lost momentum towards getting the corporate America to return to a neutral stand and getting portions of the left to ditch the cold war attitude towards us.
I would rather win and have a more unified country than lose and have more intensified hatred but that’s just me and apparently JD Vance.
Kimmel is costing Disney money, rather than making money. That right there is a win.
Settle down. The FCC is charged with regulation of broadcast airwaves to include content and in particular where programming is potentially deliberately false to investigate whether said program content met the ‘public interest’ standard. Wielding power in a neutral way as Carr merely mused about seems shocking b/c prior country club GoP pearl clutchers wouldn’t dream of doing applying a neutral standard on the largely leftist content of most networks. The d/prog are fuming b/c they hate the idea of accountability and reciprocity, not that we need to mirror what they’ve done in the past but it thinking it gives them well earmetd nightmares so be it.
Being ‘nice’ isn’t gonna help. See the murder of Charlie Kirk who was the epitome of a ‘happy warrior’. Instead of choosing to debate him the leftists chose to demonize him and create a narrative to ‘justify’ his murder, then they celebrated it by the tens of thousands publicly. The unchecked vitriolic and violent rhetoric unleashed daily by leftist wokiestas in and out of office but especially by prominent lefty figures like Kimmel on our public airwaves is calculated to deceive, manipulate and inspire violence by the many loony leftists. Time for it to end.
The bullies are gonna keep taking your ‘lunch money’ until you stop cowering and start curb stomping them. The era of nice guy/compassionate conservative leadership is over. They had a shot and didn’t deliver lasting victory for the broad middle class. What the current Trump 2.0 Admin is doing is frankly mild in comparison to what many us want to see. What comes after Trump 2.0 if he is unsuccessful in a clean sweep of the DC swamp will be far more ruthless and far more relentless in wielding power to root out the rot.
“seems shocking b/c prior country club GoP pearl clutchers”
Called it in under 10 words.
Before Brendan Carr announced the FCC would be the ministry of truth the momentum was on our side and Jimmy Kimmel was fired.
Now the momentum has reversed and Jimmy Kimmel has a job.
If you consider that winning you are a Democrat.
Says the forum RINO.
Well Kimmel was fired and corporations had momentum moving away from Democrats prior to Brendan Carr declaring he would fact check media and take any media he didn’t like off airwaves.
Now the momentum is reversed and Kimmel rehired.
J.D. Vance called what Brendan Carr said a joke.
In context Brendan Carr repeated the same thing seriously to anyone who would listen and bring a microphone.
J.D. Vance voted for Brendan Carr to stop sabotaging on us.
FCC has no right to decide what opinions are acceptable.
Brendan Carr however did have the ability to help the Democrats and he did.
“FCC has no right to decide what opinions are acceptable.”
No, but it has the authority to examine whether or not on-air behavior was in the public’s interest or not.
Kimmel wasn’t ‘fired’. He was suspended. Carr didn’t make any such claim or threats. You are regurgitating d/prog wokiesta talking point falsehoods.
The FCC does in fact have the ability to regulate programming on broadcast airwaves to ensure content remains in the ‘public interest’. That’s part of the responsibility placed upon broadcasters granted a broadcast license; that the program content supports ‘public interest’.
When Kimmel or anyone else presents deliberate falsehoods as facts despite the available evidence completely undermining it …that’s not an ‘opinion’ piece but a deliberate premeditated attempt to deceive and IMO done for the purpose of advancing a partisan ideological narrative….and broadcasters ain’t supposed to do that.
Exactly. The Dems are shocked by Trump because there hasn’t been a POTUS like him, willing to throw his weight around, since FDR. It’s particularly shocking since it’s not being done by one of their own. Even Obama wasn’t as bold. He was, to a certain extent, too slick for his own good and didn’t cause half the trouble he could have if he had behaved like Trump, that is, without regard for his critics. I think he cared too much about how history would view him, such was his narcissism.
Selective outrage, performative nonsense.
As irresponse to these communist retards, I think the words “shove it up your ass” really hit the mark
Private sector employees have no first amendment rights, vis-a-vis their employer.
The insufferably obnoxious, dim-witted, oafish, unfunny, overpaid and tiresome Dhimmi-crat shill/lapdog/trained seal, Kimmel, is merely an employee of Disney. He was taken off the air by Disney brass, for engaging in mendacious conduct that reflected poorly on Disney and threatened its goodwill and bottom line.
The notion that First Amendment rights are implicated in this situation is farcical.
The fact that Fauxahontas has directed her focus away from Disney is a de facto admission that Disney’s re-platforming of Kimmel proves Disney didn’t initially de-platform him due to anything said by someone from Team Trump.