Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers hosted their late-night shows Thursday using a mix of humor and solidarity with suspended ABC host Jimmy Kimmel.
Stewart opted for satire to critique ABC suspending “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely following comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — as did Meyers, who jokingly directed a list of compliments at President Donald Trump, before illustrating the administration's flip-flop on free speech. Colbert took a more serious approach, calling his suspension "blatant censorship.” Fallon praised Kimmel and vowed to keep doing his show as usual. Then an announcer spoke over him and replaced most of his critiques about Trump with flattery.
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Shows who welcomed guests the day after Kimmel's suspension — which also came two months after CBS said it would cancel Colbert's show — varied widely. Fallon’s guests were actor Jude Law, journalist Tom Llamas and actor and singer Jonathan Groff — none of whom addressed Kimmel’s situation.
Stewart and Colbert interviewed guests who could address censorship concerns raised by Kimmel’s suspension. Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa spoke to Stewart.
When Stewart asked Ressa, the author of “How to Stand Up to a Dictator,” tips on coping with the current moment, Ressa recounted how she and her colleagues at the news site Rappler “just kept going” when she was faced with 11 arrest warrants in one year under Philippine then-President Rodrigo Duterte.
“We just kept doing our jobs. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other,” Ressa said.
Stewart makes special appearance to skewer Kimmel suspension
Stewart normally only hosts “The Daily Show” on Mondays — and Ressa also wasn't the guest who was originally slated — but the change in lineup arrived one day after Kimmel's suspension.
On Thursday, Stewart opened the show opened with a voice-over promising adherence to the party line.
“We have another fun, hilarious administration-compliant show,” it said.
He lavished praise on the president and satirized his criticism of large cities and his deployment of the National Guard to fight their crime.
“Coming to you tonight from the real (expletive), the crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City. It is a tremendous disaster like no one’s ever seen before. Someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?” Stewart said.
“The Daily Show” set was refashioned with decorative gold engravings, in a parody of gold accents Trump has added to the fireplace, doorway arches, walls and other areas of the Oval Office.
Stewart fidgeted nervously as though he was worried about speaking the correct talking points. When the audience members reacted with an “awww” he whispered: “What are you doing? Shut up. You’re going to (expletive) blow this for us.”
He took on a more stilted tone when he started describing Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom, calling the president “our great father.”
“Gaze upon him. With a gait even more majestic than that of the royal horses that prance before him,” he said.
Stewart helmed “The Daily Show” from 1999 through 2015, delivering sharp, satirical takes on politics and current events and interviews with newsmakers. The Emmy winner returned to host once a week during the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Swift suspension after remarks on Kirk’s assassination
Kimmel made several remarks about the reaction to Kirk's killing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday and Tuesday nights, including that “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk.”
ABC suspended Kimmel's show after a group of ABC-affiliated stations said it would not air the show, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said his agency had a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.
Kimmel has not commented. His supporters say Carr misread what the comic said and that nowhere did he specifically suggest that Tyler Robinson — the man Utah authorities allege fatally shot Kirk — was conservative.
In July, CBS said it would cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May. The network said it shut down the decades-old TV institution for financial reasons. But the announcement came three days after Colbert criticized the settlement between President Donald Trump and Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, over a “60 Minutes” story.
'The Late Show' hosts past and present address suspension
Colbert started his monologue on Thursday with the animated song “Be Our Guest” from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” but replaced the lyrics with “Shut your trap. Shut your trap.”
He later addressed Kimmel directly, saying that he stands with him and his staff.
“If ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive,” he said.
He also responded to remarks Carr made that it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming “they determine falls short of community values.”
“Well, you know what my community values are, buster? Freedom of speech,” Colbert said to loud applause from his audience.
When Colbert talked with New Yorker editor David Remnick about Kimmel's suspension, he said: “What we are seeing now is the government acting at the direction of the president of the United States to put pressure on, to manipulate, to silence and even to shut down institutions of the free word."
Fallon also opened his “Tonight Show” monologue addressing Kimmel’s suspension. “To be honest with you all, 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.”
Meyers expressed solidarity with Kimmel, too — noting that it is a “privilege and an honor” to call the fellow comic his friend, “in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show.”
In his Thursday segment of “A Closer Look,” Meyers added his show will continue operating as it always has. "We must all stand up for the principles of free expression," he said.
David Letterman, Colbert's predecessor on “The Late Show,” lamented networks' moves to suspend Kimmel.
“I feel bad about this, because we all see where see this is going, correct? It’s managed media,” Letterman said during an appearance Thursday at The Atlantic Festival 2025 in New York. “It’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous.”
He added that people shouldn’t be fired just because they don’t “suck up” to what Letterman called “an authoritarian” president.
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AP Business Writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips in New York contributed to this report.