OPINION–I’m no fan of Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t watch late night television (except Austin City Limits on Saturday), and when I did – years ago – it wasn’t him. I think what Kimmel said about Charlie Kirk, his alleged assassin, and the political landscape in general was wrong-headed, verifiable false, and generally worthy of criticism.
But if it turns out to be true that he was fired because the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) put pressure on ABC to take him off the air, that should cause all honest, limited-government conservatives to pause.
Now, I want to say quickly that some of the facts here are still in dispute. It’s not, as of this writing, yet clear why Kimmel was “indefinitely suspended.” (Though a good summary of events, and the role FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, can be found here.) Certainly poor ratings were a contributing cause. His ratings were a fraction of what they were a decade ago, and less than half of what they were five years ago. But that’s true of all late-night programs, and of television generally. The timing of his suspension, in the aftermath of his political comments, is surely a contributing factor, too, and that is not in dispute.
That’s why Robert George’s comments on the matter caused me to sit up and take notice. Robert George has served in the top ranks of government and academia. He is no ideologue, and he knows the law. He’s a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In short, he has impeccable conservative credentials.
He wrote a long post on social media, and I call your attention to a portion of it. After acknowledging that what Kimmel said was false and blatantly ideological, he goes on to say:
We should not want public officials pressuring companies to fire or discipline people for their First Amendment protected speech–even when it’s false. It is simply too great a threat to civil liberty.
Then, George makes a point that all conservatives should take to heart, and that is that it must be conservatives who stand for free speech, even for those with whom we disagree. He said, “Those of us who did defended First Amendment principles during the Biden years need to be no less outspoken in defending them today. We mustn’t be hypocrites.”
Then he makes a key point: “It’s simply unsafe to trust government officials with the power to, in effect, regulate First Amendment protected speech. It is power too easily abused.”
Compromise Has Consequences
Richard Weaver famously wrote that “ideas have consequences.” It’s also true that compromising our best ideas – and free speech is one of them – will have bad consequences. Said another way, a more biblical way: we will reap what we sow.
Some have defended the FCC by saying that regulating the public airwaves is what this agency is supposed to do. The FCC is not overreaching its mission. It is fulfilling its mission.
Even if that is true (and, again, the facts here are still in dispute), conservatives should still be watching it like a hawk, and we should get nervous when it even comes close to the limits of its powers, even if it isn’t stepping over those limits.
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In other words: If, today, you are defending the FCC’s right to squash the speech of Jimmy Kimmel, you may soon get the chance to see a now much more aggressive, emboldened, powerful FCC – under a less sympathetic administration – might squash the speech of the hundreds of Christian teachers, and the thousands of Christian radio stations who carry them, on the public’s airwaves.
This concern is not hypothetical. One of the levers in the Kimmel affair was the threat that the FCC might torpedo a proposed merger between Nexstar, the nation’s largest owner of TV stations, and White Knight Broadcast holdings. The merger requires FCC approval, and that approval was not assured, since it creates anti-trust and other issues. Nexstar’s decision to drop Kimmel may have been made to help grease the skids of that merger.
But these secular media titans are not the only ones merging.
The Christian radio industry has seen significant consolidation over the past five years, driven by financial pressures and demographic shifts. Hope Media Group merged with WAY FM in 2022 to create one of the largest Christian radio organizations in the country. In 2024, Educational Media Foundation (K-Love and Air1) bought Salem’s “The Fish” stations in Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas, and elsewhere. EMF is the largest Christian broadcaster in the U.S.
These mergers, many other smaller mergers, and likely dozens to come in the future require FCC approval. If the FCC can force Jimmy Kimmel off the air today, is it possible that a future FCC could force David Jeremiah, Alistair Begg, Erwin Lutzer, or Greg Laurie off the air?
The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)—a prominent trade association representing Christian media outlets, including radio and TV broadcasters—has not issued any public comment on Kimmel’s suspension. This silence is notable given NRB’s advocacy role in defending religious broadcasters against FCC pressures. The NRB’s silence is especially noteworthy because Nexstar, one of the companies involved in merger talks and the company that started this controversy, carries Christian programming.
But the NRB’s silence in fact speaks loudly. For several years, NRB leaders said it wanted to be as strong an advocate for the First Amendment as the NRA was for the Second Amendment. That promise now seems seriously compromised. The NRB knows that if it sides with the free speech argument, which its history says it should, it will alienate a large portion of its MAGA-leaning membership. (I reached out to the NRB for comment, but it did not respond.)
It is ironic the Kimmel controversy was set in motion by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It’s impossible to know how Kirk himself would react, but he was not silent on the subject of the First Amendment. He once wrote: “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
SEPTEMBER 23, 2025 UPDATE: Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air today, and the NRB issued the following statement:
The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), the world’s leading association of Christian communicators, has issued a statement reaffirming freedom of speech as the cornerstone of American democracy. The organization encourages the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to uphold these standards consistently and fairly.
The following statement is attributable to Troy A. Miller, NRB president & CEO:
“The strength of our democratic republic lies in its openness to diverse voices in the public square, and the government is responsible for allowing space for civil disagreement. When one voice is suppressed, all voices are at risk. If viewpoint-based suppression can be directed at mainstream broadcasters today, it could be directed at faith-based broadcasters tomorrow.”
The following statement is attributable to Michael Farris, NRB general counsel:
“Ultimately, it is the FCC’s job to ensure that ‘broadcasting in the public interest’ is defined in a way consistent with the First Amendment. Imbalance alone should never serve as grounds for silencing a broadcaster. If that were the standard, Christian radio and television would be at risk, as they rightly take strong positions without providing equal time to opposing viewpoints. The role of government is to safeguard speech, not restrict it.”
NRB affirms its commitment to working constructively with the FCC to ensure regulations are applied fairly and without political bias. NRB encourages the FCC to uphold its standards consistently for all broadcasters and communicators. The Commission has the opportunity to maintain an environment where disagreement can exist without coercion.
For more than eight decades, NRB has stood as a consistent voice for free expression in the public square. The association has defended free speech across multiple administrations and shifting cultural debates, guided not by partisan outcomes but by enduring principles rooted in the First Amendment. NRB will continue to advocate for both freedom of speech and freedom of religion across all media.