CANCELLED: Trump revives cancel culture to cancel guy who called him a canceller.

PLUS — Here’s what the other late-night comedy hosts should do about it.

Bottom Line Up Front:

In a move that shocked no one familiar with authoritarian irony, the Trump administration pressured Disney-owned ABC to yank Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off the air after Kimmel criticized the response to Charlie Kirk’s death. It capped a week of shocking actions against free speech. But I have thoughts on how the other late-night hosts should respond.

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WHAT HAPPENED

Last night I reported that Trump’s broadcast chief, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, was threatening to punish ABC if they didn’t drop Kimmel for his joke. Afterwards, ABC blinked and took the comedian off the air. And just like that, cancel culture got a new CEO: Donald J. Trump.

But let’s rewind for a moment to where this began. Since last week, Kimmel has been criticizing the Trump administration’s response to Kirk’s death, including craven efforts to use the commentator’s murder as an excuse to silence political opposition.

On Monday, Kimmel said this in his opening monologue:

“The MAGA Gang (is) 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.”

Apparently, that was enough to spark a state-sponsored media firestorm. FCC chair Carr appeared on right-wing shows suggesting his agency would bring the hammer down on ABC affiliates unless Kimmel was punished.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said.

I’m not kidding. That’s what he said. Like a henchman in a mob movie, Trump’s media overseer threatened to pull the plug on an entire news network because their late-night host offended people.

Nexstar and Sinclair, two of the country’s largest local TV operators, promptly yanked the show from their airwaves. Neither of them, it should be noted, wanted to displease the Trump administration, as they’re seeking merger approvals from the same government that is now threatening broadcast licenses over punchlines.

And what did Trump do from his overseas trip to London? He praised the move and called for the axing of the rest of the late-night comedians.

“Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done," he wrote on Truth Social. "That leaves Jimmy (Fallon) and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC!!!”

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WHAT IT MEANS

I’ll go out there and say it: this is suppression of lawful speech. That type of government coercion isn’t just bad. IT IS ILLEGAL. The government can’t use regulatory threats to retaliate against constitutionally protected commentary.

Yet the president and FCC chair can breathe freely knowing that they won’t be investigated by the FBI, whose director who is currently so self-conscious about his own competence that he’ll do anything to please the boss.

Welcome to the new MAGA cancel culture.

Again, the irony writes itself. As recently as last month, conservatives had a hive-mind brain aneurysm when the Cracker Barrel guy was briefly cancelled, causing Donald Trump to exhume the character from his grave through corporate coercion. But comedians telling jokes he doesn’t like? He’ll destroy them.

(Don’t get me started on the breathless outrage from MAGA world when an M&M character lost her go-go boots.)

But it’s bigger than that. This has been a very bad week for free speech in America.

The president started designating protest groups as “major terrorist organizations,” filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, declared open season on any public figure who dares to criticize his allies, dispatched the Attorney General to threaten “hate speech” prosecutions, wielded Pentagon and State Department powers to punish Kirk detractors, and egged on efforts to crowd-source the firing of Americans from their jobs for social-media posts.

Forgive my language, but holy shit. This is un-American to the core.

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WHAT’S NEXT

There was a small bright spot. I was delighted to read reports that Stephen Colbert might bring Jimmy Kimmel on his show as soon as tonight. And as I lay in bed thinking about it, I decided to use my time constructively and conceived of ways the other late-night hosts could strike back.

Here are three ideas:

• First, they could all rename their shows "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in protest. Not only that, they could replay Kimmel’s opening monologue that so offended Donald Trump. This would be a clever way to force the FCC to cancel everyone.

• Second, at least one of them could dress like the Cracker Barrel guy and do the whole show from a rocking chair. There must, must, must be an effort to poke fun at the hypocrisy of the Trump administration trying valiantly to save its “friends” from cancellation but eliminate its enemies.

• Third, the late-night hosts could all broadcast from Canada. Or really any place where satire isn’t punishable by regulators. It’s important to show how “dangerous” it is becoming to speak your mind in the United States, and broadcasting from afar would hit the point hard and hilariously.

We joke, but this is serious. Trump’s government is unleashing the most sweeping, anti-speech campaign in modern history. You can call it cancel culture or even fascism-with-a-laugh-track. But whatever you do, don’t call it the American way. After almost 250 seasons, that TV show is on the cusp of getting cancelled.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

Don’t miss the other upcoming Substack LIVE events this week:

1. ONE: Today / Thursday (4pmET) - A special conversation on CENSORSHIP with former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn - How timely. I’ll be joined on Substack LIVE by Harry, and we’ll talk about the Censorship War being waged by the Trump administration. You can join here.

2. TWO: Friday (4pmET) - War Department unleashed? - I’ll be joined on Substack LIVE by former CNN correspondent Barbara Starr to discuss how the Pentagon is being turned against Americans. You can join here.