Naomi Girson | opinions editor

President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to censor the narrative, the news and the network comedians.

Two months ago, CBS announced that they were canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” in May 2026. They said the decision was a financial one, that was mainly due to a $16 million lawsuit CBS was facing from President Donald Trump, after he sued the network.

Trump sued Paramount Global, early this year, alleging that a “60 Minutes” interview with his 2024 Democratic rival Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to favor her party.

Top executives at Paramount and CBS called the show “a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist” in a statement after the cancellation was announced. They also said “it is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” all according to AP News.

In Colbert’s monologue after the announcement, he made it clear he did not approve of the settlement Paramount accepted, and was aware of future projects the company was working on that needed federal approval to move forward. He said the technical term was “a big fat bribe.”

Trump also wrote on Truth Social celebrating Colbert’s unemployment, and foreshadowed what was to come.

“I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert. Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight show.”

Last week, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly taken off the air indefinitely, by ABC and its affiliates. They cited a comment about Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter made in Kimmel’s Monday monologue.

His direct statement was, “We had 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 and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

It is clear these cancellations, this censorship, is a direct result of our federal administration. Right now, they are blaming statements made about Kirk, but it’s clear that’s not all it is. The government wants total control of the media, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore.

According to NPR, Kimmel paid respects to Kirk and his family and denounced his attacker. He took a moment for the tragedy and then he went back to regularly scheduled programming.

Following the show, Disney, ABC’s parent company, announced that Kimmel’s show will returned Tuesday, according to The New York Times.

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” Disney said in a statement according to ABC 7 Los Angeles.

However, ABC affiliates Nexstar and Sinclair said on Tuesday morning that they would not be airing the show on their networks, which make up 20% of viewers according to The New York Times.

The show was uploaded to YouTube in its 28-minute monologue entirety, immediately after airing, for those in the regions it was still restricted in. The video has reached 14 million views in 17 hours and keeps climbing.

“Let me tell you if the government gets in the business of saying we don’t like what you the media have said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like, that will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz said on a podcast this week. Kimmel agreed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever said this before, but Ted Cruz is right,” Kimmel said.

Kimmel’s return gave way to just how many people are really on the side of free speech. He did not back down from his statements and apologize for anything other than the possible misconstrued narrative his quotes have turned into over the last week.

He poked fun at Brendan Carr, chairmen of the FCC who made a suggestion to take Kimmel off the air, stating, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” just hours before the announcement, according to CNN.

Kimmel called Robert De Niro — after telling the audience he was calling Carr — who acted as the FCC’s mob boss, dramatically overstating how much it would cost to make uncensored jokes now.

“A couple of fingers, maybe a tooth,” De Niro said, regarding the cost of a joke that painted Trump in a less than positive light. It’s satirical and hyperbole, but with Carr’s statement last week, that is the image he wants to give for himself and his company. He wants to elicit fear.

The regulation and the censorship is real, and it’s happening, but in the last week we have seen that people will not be silent. More and more people are realizing this restriction is not going to affect one side more than another. In the end, everyone will lose their freedom. Carr said it best, on X, in 2022.

“President Biden is right. Political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That’s why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.”

Naomi Girson can be reached at girsonn@duq.edu