Senate Democrats accused TV broadcasters of “trampling … free speech rights” of alleged comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
But in truth, the issue has nothing to do with free speech rights, and through veiled threats and demands, they revealed themselves as hypocrites.
Last week Disney and ABC indefinitely suspended the late night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” after the host claimed that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a fellow conservative. That was a lie.
On Monday of this week they reversed that decision, and the show began airing again Tuesday night. However, two major TV affiliate station owners announced that they would continue preempting Kimmel’s show with news programming.
This raised the ire of four U.S. Democratic senators: Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“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.
But describing it as a First Amendment free speech issue is idiotic, and for two reasons.
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First, only the government is barred from restricting speech. It doesn’t apply to individuals or private businesses. They can restrict all the speech they want.
Second, although Americans have a right to speak freely, subject to a few exceptions, there is no constitutional right to host or even appear on a TV show. And if you actually host a TV show, the station owners have no constitutional obligation to air it.
So the argument made by the four senators is erroneous. They do, however, reveal their own hypocrisy through veiled threats directed at the station owners.
The senators noted that both broadcasters have business pending before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and told them if they “traded the censorship of a critic of the administration for official acts by the Trump administration, your companies are not only complicit in an alarming trampling of free speech rights but also risk running afoul of anticorruption law.”
As journalist and former GOP congressional candidate Ron Bassilian put it, “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?”
He added, “I guess you’re (D)ifferemt.”
Again, as private companies, the station owners can air whatever programming they want, subject to their contracts with the networks.
The four senators weren’t the only Democrats whose hackles were raised by the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco — so too were those of MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.
“It’s not just a media story, it’s a democracy story, it’s a freedom of speech story,” she claimed.
But again, it’s not a “freedom of speech story,” but just like the lawmakers, she displayed her hypocrisy.
When Psaki served as the White House press secretary in 2021, she openly admitted that the Biden administration was actively censoring the opinions that ordinary Americans posted on social media.
She said that the White House was “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
Psaki added, “It’s important to take faster action against harmful posts … and Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts.”
And after Kimmel’s brief absence, both Bill and Hillary Clinton claimed they also supported free speech, which caught the attention of George Washington Law Professor Jonathan Turley.
“Just when you think that you have reached a point where no hypocrisy surprises you, Bill Clinton comes out for free speech. The last time I saw Clinton was when he and Hillary were at the World Forum in Berlin with others calling for global censorship,” he recalled.
“I spoke at the conference as one of the few free speech advocates. The conference called for a ‘New World Order with European Values.’ With her husband applauding, Hillary Clinton called upon the Europeans to combat the threat of free speech,” Turley continued.
“Previously, Hillary Clinton called upon the European Union to use the infamous Digital Services Act to force companies like X to resume censoring Americans and others. She is now also claiming to be a free speech advocate.”
As the old saying goes, if it weren’t for double standards, Democrats would have no standards at all.
And in this case, if you scratch a Democrat, you’ll find a fascist.
They’re wrong on the law, and they’re total hypocrites.
Other stories you may want to read:
- Michael Dorstewitz: New York: ‘Come for Communism, Stay for Jihad’ - October 9, 2025
- Michael Dorstewitz: Democrats Misunderstand Free Speech, Reveal Their Own Hypocrisy - September 27, 2025
- Michael Dorstewitz: Helene Demonstrates the Inefficiencies of Big Government - October 3, 2024