From Jon Stewart to Stephen Colbert: Late-night hosts rally around Jimmy Kimmel

It was Thursday, but Jon Stewart decided it was Monday. The most political of all U.S. late-night hosts chose to turn September 18 into Monday — the only day of the week he presents The Daily Show. However, the extraordinary events unfolding on the U.S. television, with the silencing of voices critical of the Trump administration and the sudden cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, prompted the 62-year-old New Yorker to air an extraordinary episode.

Following the indefinite suspension on Wednesday of ABC’s program after a comment Kimmel made regarding Charlie Kirk’s killer, the U.S. television community rallied around Kimmel. Numerous figures from the cultural world, as well as his colleagues and former peers in late-night television, condemned the cancellation, using strong terms like “censorship” and “criminal authoritarianism.”

But Stewart went a step further, dedicating a full 23-minute segment to the issue on his show, titled with tongue firmly in cheek: Jon Stewart’s Post-Kimmel Primer on Free Speech in the Glorious Trump Era. He also invited Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, who presented her book How to Stand Up to a Dictator.

“From Comedy Central, it’s the all-new, government-approved Daily Show, with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart!” began the segment, amid images of quintessentially American images — a hint of what was to come. “With your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart.”

Wearing a red tie and a flag pin, Stewart pretended to be nervous. Pouting and staring off into the distance, he gave the impression that he was about to present another “fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show.” He did so from a room full of gilded décor, very much in the taste of the new Oval Office. For 20 minutes, Stewart became a hilarious sycophant of Trumpism.

The host opened by criticizing New York as “a tremendous disaster—someone should send in the National Guard!” He explained that it was all because “our great father has not been home, for father has been gracing England” — referring to Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom.

Treating him as if he were an authoritarian ruler, Stewart referred to Trump as “our beloved leader,” ironically praising each of the president’s actions with feigned solemnity and tension. He mocked Trump’s speeches to English royalty: “The whole room is enthralled,” he joked. “The president, almost despicably humble, gave the royals a rare glimpse at his soft-spoken yet prideful side,” he continued, mixing pomp with satire, showing clips of Trump’s speech — too informal and ill-suited for a Windsor gala dinner.

Stewart also addressed Trump’s meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, where he failed to pronounce Azerbaijan, turning the “z” into a “b”; Trump also claimed that this “Aberbaijan” was at war with Albania, when in fact he meant Armenia.

Stewart continued in his sycophantic, humorous style: “I stand corrected: Azerbaijan is actually pronounced ‘Aberbaijan,’” he said, trembling, crossing out the correct word on a map and wiping sweat from his brow. At moments like this, Stewart himself could barely contain his laughter.

After showing a clip of a reporter asking Trump if free speech wasn’t in danger following the cancellation of Kimmel’s show, Stewart shouted at the screen: “How dare you, sir! How dare you, sir! What outfit are you with, sir, the Antifa-Herald Tribune?”

He then dove into the issue headfirst. “You may call it free speech in jolly old England. But in America, we have a little something called the First Amendment. And let me tell you how it works. There’s something called a Talent-ometer. It’s a completely scientific instrument that is kept on the president’s desk. And it tells the president when a performer’s TQ, Talent Quotient, measured mostly by niceness to the president, goes below a certain level, at which point, the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] must be notified to threaten the acquisition prospects for billion-dollar mergers,” he explained breathlessly, referring to Paramount’s merger with Skydance (also their bosses), which had taken down Stephen Colbert’s program in July. “Read the Constitution!” he bellowed.

Stewart praised Trump’s ability — “a curse,” he called it — to see the future, citing a tweet from two months earlier that read: “Kimmel is next.” He also played half a dozen clips from Fox News featuring fake news, from climate change denial to claims that the January 6 Capitol rioters were “peaceful, orderly, and meek.” “All true!” he shouted.

He then juxtaposed clips of Republicans — including Donald Trump Jr. — saying that no one can be criticized using words like “Nazi” or “fascist,” only to show the president using the same terms or calling Nancy Pelosi an “animal.” “Technically correct: she’s not a mineral,” he quipped.

He continued with more clips mocking violence, showing conservative Fox News clips and commentators ridiculing the brutal attack on Pelosi’s husband at their home in 2022. “There were consequences — this gentleman had to leave television! I’m not sure where he went, but I’m sure it’s not some prestigious, consequential post he’s not remotely qualified for,” he said of the commentator… none other than Pete Hegseth, now U.S. Secretary of the Department of Defense (or, Department of War, as it has been renamed).

“Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principlelesss and coldly antithetical to any experiment in constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that,” he added in the most serious part of his monologue. “Not me though — I think it’s great,” he broke in, prompting laughter from the audience. In addition to introducing his correspondents — all wearing red ties and Trump microphones — he went to commercial break by singing a little song praising Trump.

Stewart’s may have been the longest, most nuanced, and meticulously prepared critique of the sudden cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, but it was far from the only one. Seth Meyers also injected his show with humor similar to Stewart’s, explaining that the Trump administration “is pursuing a crackdown on free of speech.” “I just want to say before we get started here that I’ve always admired and respected Trump,” he joked, half-seriously acknowledging a possible fear of cancellation. “I’ve always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great president, and an even better golfer. And if you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about him, that’s just AI.”

Meyers also aired clips of high-profile figures criticizing the decision to cancel Kimmel’s show, from former president Barack Obama to Senator Bernie Sanders. “It is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend,” said Meyers. “The same way it’s a privilege and an honor to do this show every night. I wake up every day, I could my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech. We’re going to keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it, with enthusiasm and integrity,” he added, as a comedic raspberry played to lighten the tone. “This is a pivotal moment in our democracy, and we must all stand up for the principles of free expression. There’s a reason free speech is in the very First Amendment — it stands above all others.”

Stephen Colbert, who learned in July that his show is facing its final season and will end in May without a replacement, also addressed the issue in his Thursday night monologue. “Do you know what my community values are, buster?” he appealed to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “Freedom of speech,” he said to cheers. “People across this country are shocked by this blatant assault on the freedom of speech.”

Jimmy Fallon, who also received threats from Trump in July, also made reference to the decision to cancel Kimmel’s show. Looking somewhat downcast, he appeared Thursday on The Tonight Show on NBC, and joked about being confused with his namesake. “This morning I woke up to a hundred text messages from my dad saying, ‘I’m sorry they canceled your show.’” In a more serious tone, he added: “To be honest with you, I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny and loving guy. And I hope he comes back.”

Fallon added that a lot of people were worried that he would be censored, but he said he would cover Trump, and his trip to the U.K., as he normally would. But every time he started to say something critical about the president, a voice would change it to something positive: “He looked incredibly handsome,” or “his friend Jeff... Goldblum,” instead of Jeffrey Epstein. “See? We can still say what we want.”

Veteran host David Letterman also spoke on Thursday, during a festival. “We all see where this going, right? It’s managed media,” he said. “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.”

Letterman, who spent more than three decades on late-night television until 2015, noted that he never faced criticism for mocking or criticizing presidents. “The point is beating up on these people, rightly or wrongly, accurately or perhaps inaccurately in the name of comedy, not once were we squeezed by anyone from any governmental agency, let alone the dreaded FCC,” he said.

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